Why does Computers - Amp - Speakers sound better?

You are making a lot of assumptions. "256 kbps should not sound better than high quality vinyl of music from the past five years (i.e. not mastered from bad tapes)." Why not? How do you know the tapes are bad? To get anywhere, you are going to have to listen to the same recording on both sources. That will at least give you a frame of reference to start with. Just to clarify, get the same album on CD and record. Also, make sure that one is not a remaster and the other one is. They have to be the same. Also, when you import the CD, try it different ways (lossy, non lossy, FLAC, WAV, etc). Doing it this way makes it much easier to focus on the equipment.

For me personally, I can tell you that I prefer older vinyl recordings that have no digital in the chain. Newer recordings or digital remasters sound like better digital and not like analog. I don't think its worth the extra time and money. Keep in mind, thats just my opinion.

Because the computer is low resolution and it is not bringing out the warts in your system.

It's a lot clearer and I can hear more things. With vinyl, it's like the music is masked behind a veil, and with digital, the veil's been lifted. Don't know how else to describe it.

My NAD doesn't have a phono input. For my analog system, I'm using the built in phono on my Denon. I'm starting to think it's either that or my cartridge. I've level-matched and listened to about a dozen different records and their respective source files. Only once has the vinyl sounded better than digital, and that was only because it was a very busy ska record and the vinyl helped me distinguish the individual instruments.

And yes, I'm listening to the same album on both vinyl and digital. I'm not comparing two different ones, lol.

Took a quick look at the owner reviews on Amazon and noticed, as I suspected, that most are bypassing the built in Preamp and using a external phono amp of better quality. While I don't believe you have to spend $$$$$ to get good sound, it is asking a lot of a turntable/Preamp combo at that price to be better than digital.

I listened only to cheap turntable's and whatever phono was in the receiver until I was around 30 years old, and when CD's came out they sounded better than what I had been listening to, so I changed to CD's. Twenty years latter,after purchasing a good preamp, one with a good MM phono stage, I purchased my next turntable and am really enjoying my 1000 lp's I had stored all that time.

A while ago I set up my old cheap Rotel turntable into my mid 90's Onko receiver and guess what? It was horrible . The phono stage is very important, and cannot be overlooked! Everything is important!

I would read the many thread's on good budget phono amps, and save my penny's until I could afford it, or purchase a good old Preamp or receiver which is known to have a good phono stage in it.

Sorry for the long post. Good luck

Danny