Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

Not perfect but good enough.
Why don’t you buy a plane ticket and fly to Milan ? You could feel that ambiance the day after tomorrow .

By the way, I disagree with those who think that good digital is less expensive, I think exactly the opposite. You really need extremely expensive equipment to make digital tolerable. With analog - just a few thousand $$$$. If you play your $10k Marantz or Esoteric or Accuphase etc and heard nothing better - you have no idea how digital might sound. Still, it sounds artificial no matter what you do with it, and it always will. By definition. But people are stupid and stubborn and so they will keep trying.

A major problem that's holding back my digital system is that my vinyl significantly out-performs it. I'm trying to figure this out. It may be that it'll never be possible due to the dynamic superiority of vinyl? I went ahead and bought the Music on Vinyl release of Surfacing -- even though there's a Analog Productions release which is assuredly better.

My record playing system:
Triangle Art Concerto + upgraded platter / Jelco 750 / TA Zeus / TA speed controller / periphery ring and spindle weights.
Lite Audio all-tube phono stage + NOS 5751 with Herbie dampening rings...getting a Hashimoto SUT next week.

My digital system:
Custom PC no fans + linear PSU + battery isolated SSD + battery powered Paul Pang USB card / Win10 / Roon / HQPlayer / Fidelizer Pro.
Space Tech Lab DA-512DSD-1 / 274B + KT150.

Both systems (except the speed controller) are on a Chinese balanced isolation transformer I got in just this week.

Cabling is currently a mish-mash of pro cables, silver-plated copper customs from Amplifier Repair (on eBay) and an Audio Envy I picked up at a show. Power cables are mostly Audio Sensibility.

I got the Space Tech Lab a while ago to try and bridge the gap between my records and my digital because it was all-tubed with a big bottle 274B rectifier and no-holds-barred on the output tubes. The dynamics, especially with the all-tube phono stage, of my records are just in a different playing field compared to the digital and the new DAC didn't change that. When the Hashimoto comes in it'll probably take it up another notch.

I don't know what to do. If this keeps up I may abandon digital altogether. Do I need an Esoteric to reach the same level?

 

"Why don’t you buy a plane ticket and fly to Milan ? You could feel that ambiance the day after tomorrow."

If you are suggesting La Scala in Milano, the season starts on December 7, 2018 with one preview on December 4th. So elizabeth will have to be patient for a few extra days.

Of course, famous La Scala. Well, maybe better wait until January - plane tickets might be expensive and hard to get in December. But these days short trip to Europe can be relatively inexpensive.