Digital as good or better than YOUR analog?

Since I'm already posting here.

No, my digital is not as good as my analog rig and I have had two dozen players that I purchased or were loaned to me to make the test.

Heck, in the beginning I waited in anticipation for each new "upgrade" to arrive from Sonic Frontiers, Wadia, Theta, Entec, Audio Research, Krell (etc., etc.).

Many of these are excellent, but in the end, model to model much of the differences are a side ways move. Give up something and get something else.

Several players have been sent to me this last few years to audition in hopes I would post a positive Audiogon review.

Admittedly, even the most expensive CD playback systems I've tested were not as expensive as my analog, but I have had several that were more than $10,000.00, one a great deal more than that.

I kept the Sony 9000 ES because it performs very well for only $700.00. It beat two 10K players and one member of my audio group brought a 20K two piece rig for testing one night with six people voting. At the end of the evening he was so disappointed how it fared against the two extremes (cheap "OK" digital) and (vastly superior analog) that it went up for sale here at Audiogon the same week.

That's interesting news, I hope I don't end up making a side ways move from my modified Alpha Dac to an Audio Aero Prima Dac or an Audio Logic, those are my plans within a week to hear.

I really wish I could say that my modest JVC 1050 cd player with Bel Canto DAC 1.1 offers the aliveness and reproduces string instruments in the same manner as the Oracle/SME/Benz Micro but it really doesn't. If I want to really hear a piano, I have to listen to the tt, the digital set-up misses on even the best recordings to my ears. It does other things that are enjoyable but to me is decidely less real sounding even though I listen to it 70% of the time. On the other hand it is much less important now than it was 10 years ago when digital was truly much less enjoyable than it currently is.

Now I have to wait for Dan Wright's work on my digital belt diven "creature on steroids". He promised to WOW! me in every way...

I just don't know how close it will get to my current analog setup--which is sounding real close to digital!

Yesterday I talked to Robert Schult (RSA) and he knew all along what needed to be done to attain what I wanted. He just let me find out on my own and later on corroborate my findings. Far out!

My digital is a lot better than my analog (I think). I'm just going by memory, though, as I haven't listened to my turntable in about 3 years. It's an old Sota Sapphire with a methacrylate mat, Alphason arm and a fairly good Grado cartridge. I remember it sounding pretty good, but without the spooky realism of my current AN front end. I've listened to a couple of good TT's lately (a VPI and a WTT), but I've heard nothing that makes me want to go back to messing around with VTA settings and LP cleaning machines.

I'd rather just choose from among the tens of thousands of new music releases coming out every year on CD, drop the disc into the transport, let the music wash over me and stop worrying about the question.