Opinion on Turntable & Transport / DAC.

Trouble is, the 'current day gear' criteria would apply to the turntable/arm/cartridge/phono preamp also. And you can now drop at least $100k on the analogue stuff. Plus the modern pressings (at $30 a pop) need to be factored in. I have never heard anything in this price range digital or analogue, total system cost, so I don't really know. From my own meager experience, the lp experience is more 'live' or 'real' in some sense than the cd. So, I think an all-out assault on both sides could very well end in favor of lps--or at least certain well-chosen lps. All this is hindsight to me. When CD's first came out, I quit listening to LP's as fast as I could. As did many others. Good question.

Given a well-made recording either digital or analog, a CD system can sound as satisfying as an analog system. In my humble experience though, a CD system cannot sound better.

In my experience, it took approximately 1/3 of the dollars to get "better" performance with LP's. That is to say, I had a very good sounding (to me) CD transport, DAC, Cables, Pre-amp, etc., and the Analog system that replaced it cost about 1/3 the price.

Your mileage may vary.

Dave