Would you still pay $10k or more for a turntable not full analog front end these days ?

It's not just mastering, the vinyl itself should be of high quality. Just listen to some older American records and Japanese records from early 70s.

@mikhailark If you wanna believe a $2k streamer sounds as good as a $6k+ unit from Innuos, Aurender, Grimm, etc., well, suffice it to say you’re in the vast minority here. There are many, many very experienced audiophiles here who’ve happily and enthusiastically upgraded to pricier streamers because they sounded much better, period, no matter what you think about the internet being perfect and Word documents opening without errors — apples and oranges dude. Or, maybe you’re right and all these audiophiles wasted their hard-earned $$$ on fairy dust and that they’re all just kidding themselves that their more expensive streamers actually sound better. Sure, that’s gotta be it. 🤪🙄

Nakamichi Dragon was not the very best cassette deck made. A few other Nakamichi and a few Tandberg decks were better. Nor was it the most reliable.

It's too bad that we all can't gather together and do all these comparisons. But I think I know the outcome. Other things being about equal, tape would win, and most or all of us would agree. Comparing streamers would be interesting too. Some audiophiles pay big dollars for relatively small difference, not just for streamers - for everything.