Listening to digital and analog

Sounds to me that you have to work awful hard to get digital to sound more analog, when all you have to do is throw on a record...

right -- like good analog isn’t a lot work to get right and keep right ... 🙄

like anything, something unfamiliar takes time to understand and master... for those willing to do so...(instead of just spewing negativity on forums, which is sooo easy...)

ask someone younger what it takes to get a new analog front end spec’d and dialed into a good system ...  now, that can be truly daunting for the uninitiated...

I used to have the entry level RP1 Rega TT. Sure, it had its limitations, but it still had those organic qualities that grab the soul.

Like I said before, analog people like listening to distortion and noise. What is it that drives this phantasy. Does it make you more of a man to own a turntable? I have to own a turntable because I have been collecting records since 1958. That is all we had unless you could afford a reel to reel. My dad had an Ampex. Boy did that sound great, tape hiss and all. 
If I can get a properly mastered 24/96 or 192 file I prefer it to analog. It is magic how the music erupts from a noiseless totally black background. You can NEVER get that out of a turntable I don't care how much you spend. If you think vinyl can beat that my guess would be your system needs work and not just the digital stuff, your speakers and amp. They are not telling you the reality of the situation. Again, I do have records that sound better than the digital counterparts I have heard. This is entirely a mastering issue. I agree, the loudness wars suck, many digital recordings could be done a lot better from the perspective of an audiophile. But, to discount digital entirely is to shoot yourself in the foot which you are entitled to do. 

@bigkidz gave one of the biggest factors.  modest investment of both analog and digital and digital will most likely win.  This was explained in a nice podcast via TMR Audio a couple months ago.  

It is like everything in our world in that there are many factors and won't ever be black and white.  I have more invested in analog vs digital and still find on newly released music that they are very close while the LP will still have a bit warmer mids and less harsh, but very close.  

On older releases from the 70s-90s the LP usually wins without much competition.  

It has been a bit of a psychological struggle for me where I was resistant to liking digital.  I have invested so much in vinyl and it takes so much more effort that it didn't seem right to accept digital.  Once I got over that nonsense I love it!  It allows me to listen to music sooner and decide where I may want to invest in more vinyl.  It also is much better when cooking or when I have friends over as I always feel weird interrupting someone every 15min....excuse me, gotta go flip the record.  LOL

@dhite but once you get a reference level phono stage  - and only then digital cannot compete.  Very few people I know own a reference level phono stage.  We just upgraded a Manley Steelhead and stock for $9K not close - once we upgraded (24 newer parts installed) then it was better.  But that is still not reference level compared to the phono stage we build.

I do understand your struggle though.  I went through that many years ago before we began t build our own components.