Help my analog sound as good as my streaming

There must be something about vinyl and I missed it.  I had a Technique turntable back in the 70's and purchased a $300 cartridge.  When I started buying $30 master recorded vinyl, I could really hear the difference.  However, getting off the sofa, having to wash the record took a lot of time.  I just isn't as convenient.  However, I saw a $20,000 turn table at the RMAF that was lit by a small spot light and it was just beautiful.  However, how many have $20,000 to spend on just a turn table.  It still was beautiful no matter how you cut it.

You should be able to get analog to sound better than streaming very easily. I think that a modest investment in analog pays much bigger dividends than the same investment in digital. Do not buy an inexpensive direct drive turntable rather go with a cheaper belt drive. Mapman is correct the Denon 103 is a very good cartridge for the money. In fact I can think of none better at the retail price. All things equal digital isnt even close!

Some people know nothing about high-end Direct Drive turntables and just demonstrate a lack of knowledge in every post about them on this forum. Every lacquer discs master cut on direct drive, constant speed and stable rotation forever - this is what Direct Drive is all about. Technics is only one of many, but some forever gone. This turntable will serve you 30+ years without service. You’d better ask people who own many turntables, many people on this forum are too old and if they missed something in their life it’s too late to try, most of them still don’t know that Technics made DD motor for Neumann cutting lathe (used to make all their records), and designed reference Direct Drive to reproduce those records at home (search for SP10 mk3 or new SP10R if you want to know more about reference class). Cheap belt drive turntables is a joke, manufacturers of those BD toys are so small, so it’s a toy factory compared to Matsushita (Technics/National/Panasonic), their stuff is afordable only because they are making millions of turntables keeping the price low (not high) without compromise in quality, those are Made in Japan if you know what does it mean today. 

DD turntables are available form Technics, Thorens, 
Cambridge just to name a few. Now days it seems they are mostly at the lower end of the spectrum, AT, Crosley, Stanton...