is it possible to make digital audio sound like vintage vinyl

If by “real” you in the recording real then I agree. But not “real real” instruments and voices.

XM Radio tries by adding scratchy DJ sounds at the beginning of their programs.

too too much time on your hands.?

In my opinion it is possible to record the sound from your analogue set-up in order to reproduce it using a digital system. You can get a sound reproduction close to the analogue output if some equipment and software is used.
In my case, for the analogue, I like the sound resulting from the Dynavector DV505 arm + DL103R (sapphire stylus and paratrace diamond from Expert Stylus) + F-117 Nighthawk (phono pre-amp) + LINN LK85 amplifier.
For several reasons I also want to get digital copies of my vinyl's.
In order to recover the signal to do a digital copy I use the Apogee Duet2 24/96 A/D converter. For that purpose, I connect the Apogee device to my computer and record the digital signal using the Izotope RX7 software in 96 kHz, 24 bits. The resulting files can be de-noised from clicks, cracks, hum, etc, automatically (batch processing).
Izotope RX7 is the best software to perform the task. It is a professional software at a reasonable price. For this task you do not need the advanced version.
To reproduce the sound I stream the files to a LINN Sneaky streamer connected to the LK85. The sound is extremely close to the original sound. But note that I use the same analogue amplifier.
All that needs a lot of wire connections. I use the LINN KAIRN pre-amplifier as the connection hub.
Once you have some practice the process is not very time consuming. Of course cleaning the vinyl take some time but helps to reduce the noise of the record (for the cleaning-up I use the Loricraft RPC3 cleaning machine). This is the first step. Then you have to add meta-data to the digital files (this can be done with RX7). When you are used to, you need about 10 mn by LP to perform these tasks.I already digitized about 2000 of my 5000 LP's library.In my opinion the most important actors in the chain are the arm, the cartridge the phono-amp and the A/D converter.

Instruments sound, in my honest opinion, much more "real" on a well recorded digital. You may not like it, but it is more "real".

tony195417 posts05-22-2020 10:24amIt seems to me that the goal isn't to make digital sound like vinyl.The goal is to make digital sound like real instruments and human voices.