Ditto Curtdr. My seasoned audio friend parted with an integrated amp with an internal DAC to get a pure integrated amp so he needed a DAC. I suggested the well-reviewed Topping D90SE just for the heck of it, but he bought it and is enthralled with it. He has a near $20K analogue rig and he finally admits that digital music is "awfully close to the sound from vinyl." He is wedded to vinyl because of the tactile fiddliness of itl... the exact reason I parted with my SOTA TT several years ago and never looked back. I had several ~$1K DACs that all sounded okay, but then got an Ayre QB-9 in my system and consequently sold my TT the next week since it sounded so close to analogue. My Aqua LaVoce S3 is a fair bit better.
What am I missing?
When discussing streaming we often hear the quality achieved by streaming compared to "cd quality". "Cd quality" seems often to be the standard by which streaming is favorably compared while cds have at the same widely fallen into disfavor as a medium. If "cd quality" continues to be a quality standard by which we judge streaming services -which it appears to be- why exactly do we hold cds in such disfavor? More sophisticated dacs can always be employed with cd transports as they are with streaming. I understand the convenience and storage issues with cds but I also understand that with streaming you will never own the music which you do with cds. This becomes even more unclear to me when considering the resurgence of vinyl and the storage and convenience issues involved with this medium. I don't believe the music industry ever wanted us to own the music we listen to but rather preferred we only rent and pay for that music each time.