Question for classical lovers

Rotarius-I feel your pain! I loved my vinyl, and refused to even consider buying a cassette or even a reel to reel. When CD's came along, I was taken by the great S/N ratio, dynamic range, etc, but--- something wasn't right!

I bought my first CD player in 1984. Most of the early digital recordings were really bad. About 1990, we started getting some recordings that were better. 20-25 years after the birth of digital, we are starting to get equipment and recordings that really draw me back to long listening sessions rather than running me out of the room after 15 minutes. Vinyl is fussy and high maintenance but can be really rewarding, if you pay your dues. Digital is relatively easy, and there is an abundance of recorded material out there. It’s getting a whole lot better. I recently bought an Audio Mirror D-1, and I'm quite fond of that little box. It's not quite analog, but its certainly not digital sounding as we have come to know digital. If you think about the enormous leap in quality that vinyl saw from 1955 to 1980, maybe we are on a similar timetable with digital. We are about 25 years in now. I think we are about to get digital right, at long last.

Rotarius, I keep thinking about this post and some of the insightful responses. I've got a few additional thoughts. First of all, let me say that I've gone to quite a few live performances over the last 20 years. I've heard some live performances that sound like bad recordings, so not all string playing is inherently sweet and smooth. Having said that, a year ago, I would have agreed that most CD's are poorly recorded, especially with regard to the strident strings you are hearing. Now, like Newbee, I don't agree at all. In fact, I find that really bad classical recordings are the exception. I also have found that having a few good sounding CD's doesn't mean your system is OK. In fact, during the slow upgrade process I've done over the last 9 months, I've had some treasured recordings go from lovely, to not so good, and then back to wonderful. What I have noticed is that each change I made has produced a noticeable improvement and reduced listening fatigue. I suspect that a few of the changes revealed other flaws in the system, which then required remediation. It’s a slow process, since with new cables,IC's, and electronics you need to wait out the burn in before you know what you have. No single change would have been sufficient to produce the desired result, and I'm not done yet. A year ago, it was pretty typical to limit listening to 20-30 minutes, which is clearly not acceptable. Now I can spend 3-4 hours listening and regret having to stop. It's taken some patience and time, but the result has been well worth the effort. In chronological order, I replaced my power amp (Adcom to McCormack), treated the room (Auralex), bought a decent power cord (PS Audio Statement) for the amp, bought new cables and IC's (Signal Silver) and added the AM DAC. All in all, this added up to a paltry $1500 net investment. By far, the biggest bang for the buck was $90 for room treatments. Next was the DAC, but everything I did was necessary. The Signal Silvers cables and IC's really reduced the grain and helped smooth out the strings, while adding weight to the low end. The McCormack is 4 times the amp the adcom was ($250 net!), but I didn't fully appreciate what the McCormack could do until the other changes were in place. Synergy is important, and it all has to work together.
Try the Telarc recording of the Brahms 4 by Macerras and the SCO. If the prominent viola playing in the 2nd movement is not the sweetest thing you ever heard, I promise you its not the recording. (The whole 4 symphony set is worth having, not perfect recordings, but still very good and worthwhile) Also, try the Barshai Shostakovich cycle on Brilliant. This is a recent purchase for me and I'm still working my way through it, but I'm impressed with what I've heard so far.
The bottom line is this. My guess is you need to do some experimenting with the room and equipment. You probably have multiple problems that are reinforcing each other. I'd suggest you work until you identify what's offending, and then see if you still want to go the TT route.
Cheers!

Rotarius,
First of all, I'm using Magnepan 1.6QR's in my living room which is 16' x 20' x 8', carpeted, and has a fairly plush sofa and love seat. The speakers are located 4' out from the short wall and 34" from the side walls. I'm not at all sure the placement is optimized yet. I listen from the loveseat which is flush against the short wall opposite the Maggies. Anyone with suggestions?
I got two 2' x 4' Auralex studiofoam pyramid panels ($48 for the two), and glued those to a 2' x 8' Styrofoam insulation panel I bought at Lowe's. The Auralex glue cost $20 and the insulation panel was $10. I cut the panel in half to give me two 1 x 8 panels, and wedged them diagonally into the corners behind the Maggies floor to ceiling. I also bought some 1' x 1'auralex studiofoam wedges, sliced them into individual wedges, and attached those to the exposed ends to cover the blue insulation panel edges that are exposed. That was about $12 for those pieces. The nice thing about this arrangement is that they are just wedged into the corners, so they can be pulled out of place at a moments notice and stored in the basement or garage until the event is over. My wife hasn't complained so far. By the way, patience works well with finding a 2nd wife also! I've left the back walls untreated so far. Before installing those panels I was having some sort of horrendous reinforcement of certain notes from female alto, soprano, and French horns. I'm not sure if it was the fundamental or upper harmonics that was causing the problem, but it would run you out of the room with your ears bleeding. The panels really pretty well solved that problem. I’m thinking about making similar panels for the 1st reflection points on the side walls. These foam panels glued to the Styrofoam are rigid enough to stand unsupported, so you can put a 2x8' panel together and move it around the room until you find the best locations. The nice thing about this is that you don't have to wait out a burn in period. You might want to check out the Auralex.com website. One of their dealers gave me a nice Auralex catalog. If you can find one of those, I'm sure you will get some other good ideas. You can also send them a schematic of your room and they will do an analysis for you. I'll try to e-mail you some pictures that may make the description a little clearer. I hope this works as well for you as it did for me.