My conclusion: mid level $$ analog vs digital

Just by chance the CD happened to come out when I was just out of college, broke, and moving around a lot. My turntable and records were boxed up. By the time I had anything to put into audio it seemed CD was the way to go.

Several years of serious system building later I am feeling "almost done" when I read Robert Harley saying "the turntable is the heart of a high end system." WTF? I never saw a turntable in any store the whole time I was searching stuff out.

My Technics was still in a box in the garage so I dug it out. The only thing I had for a phono stage was my old 1974 Kenwood integrated. I hooked it up. Told this story before, totally true: the cantilever was bent. I carefully straightened it out.

Could have knocked me over with a feather. Wife comes home, What’s that? Tom Petty. No, I mean what CD is that? No CD, record. WTF?!?! We are both incredulous. Especially me. 25 year old $325 Technics with Kenwood is absolutely kicking butt on $1200 California Audio Labs CD. With a cantilever with a kink in it.

Then followed many years of improving both, until gradually slowly realizing the only thing CD had going was convenience. I could program which tracks, hit one button, but that was it. With CD I was playing music. With records I was enjoying music.

The rest, as they say, is history. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

I really don’t care one bit which format anyone prefers and the reasons why.  The endless debate about which format sounds better and the insistence on the part of some that I can’t possibly hear what I do hear gets kinda tiresome.  What I do care about is what my ears tell me and my ears tell me that there is a fundamental difference between the sound of analog and the sound of digital.  To one degree or another, this fundamental difference can be heard at any price point.  As one climbs the ladder on the way to SOTA equipment and assuming intelligent/synergistic system matching of gear this difference becomes less important, if not less obvious.  Everyone has different tolerance levels to ticks and pops, the inconveniences of one format vs the other, and those or other things can be deal breakers; especially at the lowest price points.  

I listen primarily, not exclusively, to music that is minimally processed and mostly acoustic in nature and FOR ME, analog recordings simply do a better job, OVERALL, of mimicking the sound and the feeling of music as heard live.  This is not to say that digital doesn’t sound good and it is true that sometimes it does a better job OVERALL; but, that fundamental difference is always there.  Simple as that. 

Thanks for sharing your findings on this.  It's a lot of fun to reach a point with analog gear where it sounds better than digital.  

One thing I would like to clarify is the use of mid-level in describing your set-up.  These days I think mid-level is closer to $3-5K for TT plus preamp.  I would put your TT in the (upper) entry level category simply based on price, not considering its performance.  And I do wish to emphasize that you can get excellent performance in this price range with proper set-up.  One of the nicest TT set-ups I've heard was less than $2K including cartridge.  I would say that if you are hearing the differences you're hearing at this level you will be even more delighted when you move up to the next levels.  There are diminishing points of return at some point but I am sure you will hear big improvements as you move up, assuming you have the desire to do so. 

Most importantly, have fun as you go, and enjoy the music.

Peter 

I'm with Frogman; I don't care for anyone else's opinion, but I do respect anyone else's opinion.  This is not an issue that can ever be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, because we all have different personalities, different cues we look for in sound quality from our carefully selected components, and.... because vinyl is better, goddammit!

It's a lot of fun to reach a point with analog gear where it sounds better than digital.

 
It sure is. That point is called the gramophone, and once you hear one you will never forget.