Nowdays the audiofile qualities (if not the musicality) of entry level digital has improved a lot. On the other hand, a good vinyl system starts at a relatively much higher price point. While digital is plug and pray, with analogue you need a lot of skill to set it up correctly and to get the most out of it. Slight adjustments do make the difference between crappy sound and gates of heaven. Cheaper vinyl rigs will not have as powerful base as good & similar priced digital rigs, and they play more surface noise than music. You have to step up to serious table & arm, LOMC cartridge, and a serious phono stage to get true base, and lack of distracting surface noise - but when you reach that point, you become a vinyl collector and your living room will look like mine or even worse (you feel as if you are lost in a library... LOL).Also, as it has been mentioned before, the recording is everything. The vinyl rig will not make every recording sound top notch - it will present them what they are. If recorded and pressed poorly, it will sound poorly. If recorded in the digital domain, it will sound exactly as if you were streaming it or it was a CD. If recorded and pressed well, it will transform your world, and flip your expectations around. The most frequent comment I am getting from my better half: "It sounds distorted and noisy, why are we listening to CD again?" Yup. When your vinyl rig is spot on, then digital can often appear noisy and distorted in comparison. Control and artifice, instead of vinyl's music and freedom.
There is the often told saying: digital is perfect until you hear correctly done vinyl for the fist time. Then the illusion of perfection is ruined forever.... sadly, it has happened to me. However, I have a modest record collection, can play a couple records every day for decades without playing same thing twice, so I am not afraid of running out of material and be forced back to lean and mean digital diet anytime soon.
Fair warning, if you insist on improving your vinyl setup, you have a good chance to end up like I did.... if you have place for a few thousand records, go for it. If you plan to move a lot, and living space is scarce, that's another story. (Even though that never stopped me... ;).
There is the often told saying: digital is perfect until you hear correctly done vinyl for the fist time. Then the illusion of perfection is ruined forever.... sadly, it has happened to me. However, I have a modest record collection, can play a couple records every day for decades without playing same thing twice, so I am not afraid of running out of material and be forced back to lean and mean digital diet anytime soon.
Fair warning, if you insist on improving your vinyl setup, you have a good chance to end up like I did.... if you have place for a few thousand records, go for it. If you plan to move a lot, and living space is scarce, that's another story. (Even though that never stopped me... ;).