MC I've missed you (a long journey back in time)

I have a small listening room in my basement with my "time capsule" system from 1983. About 20 years ago I lost my room to my kids so I packed up my gear and put in a tv and receiver for them.
Eventually they grew up and moved out (more/less) and a few years ago I tossed the entertainment center and put my system back together.
It survived storage quite well other than I had to re-foam the woofers in my subs.


Still, the room was needed as a spare bedroom on occasion so I didn’t want to risk my pricey MC cartridge. I mounted a $50 Grado and was happy. (The one thing(s) I sold off when I stored my gear were my turntables, my current DD Sony PS-4300 is pretty solid but I didn’t feel it was worthy of a better cartridge)
I added a DVD player & flat screen TV as concession to "multi-use room".
Recently I had to add a DAC to this system when my DVD player quit and I found inexpensive players no longer had analog outputs. The addition of a Topper D30 revealed the weaknesses in my Grado so I felt ready to risk mounting my trusty Alpha 1 MC.

My new headshell arrived today (Jelco magnesium with adjustable azimuth) and with the help of my Dennesen cartridge protractor I was soon in analog nirvana. Or was I?
I’ve only had about an hour to play and I have to admit that while I *think* the analog side is better, I’m really surprised at the vast improvement from processing the digital thru the $120 D30.

I didn’t know how much I missed doing this.

https://i.imgur.com/JSZHeEk.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/d9EvH9h.jpg