Worth pursuing analog sound from digital?

There are two parts to getting analog sound from digital. It's not hard. Even I did it.

First is the source. The second is a DAC into the Amp (So many good Dac's out there now). I agree a DAC need not cost a much as a car new or used. As others have wisely said, wait until next week. These days DACs are falling out of trees.

Many folks crave analog sound. A good DAC can deliver that.

I get a lot of music from high res files from Qobuz. That matters. Depth is depth. 

I now use a Lumen T2 with a built-in DAC that goes to my tube set up. I also use an ungraded power supply with the Lumin. It doesn't sound at all "digital" nor would I put up with that. I'm a warm sound set up type.

A friend and I listened to John Coltrane's "Theme For Ernie" (SoulTrane Album) and "Blue rondo a la turk" (end drum roll is so system telling) first on his fine vinyl only system in his sanctified listening room and then on my set up (PLuna HP/KT120's..tweaked pre amp tubes…quality connects…yah dah yah dah yah dah) and Mr Vinyl only was astounded. As was the guy over last night who we finally had to say good night to again and again before he got the hint. He did sample King Sunny Adé, and that was nice to hear again.

To answer your question with out battling over vinyl verses digital:  In a nut shell, analog sound from digital is here (in the beginning it sure wasn't)....your set up...room..cabling...all will affect your system's sound. Duh. Simply great files washed in a great DAC is stunning as is a great pressing on a great (read $$$) vinyl set up. 

All this passion here is great. I read for a long time before daring to jump in. The overwhelming advice time and time again is if you like something then that's great. Duh again. Additionally gleaned is that so much is system/room dependent that results vary. 

I suspect at heart there are a lot of nameless, faceless tinkerers in this august forum. Everyone is proud of their babies. And they are all beautiful.

I am not trying to rain on anybody’s parade but the problem with the “DAC makes everything better” theory is that, as I recently opined, the problems are primarily in the laser-read process and caused by not only seismic vibration but mechanical and acoustic vibration’s effects on the CD AND the inherent vibration of the disc itself PLUS the scattered background laser light gets into the photodetector where it’s mistaken for real reflected signal. These problems have existed in CD players ever since they were a gleam in some engineer’s eye. 👁 Once these problems occur there’s no going back, the corrupted data gets transmitted to the DAC, errors and all.

Is this laser-reading problem something that has been studied and corroborated? Is this a problem if the data is read from a hard drive or flash drive? im no electronic engineer but can't they make the laser processor more specific and less sensitive to avoid the misreads?

Dear @fleschler  : I own all the UK and Capitol Beatles LPs and you are rigth where the Capitol are not listenable.

@geoffkait  even if what you said is true with today DACs the souns is really good and this is what we are talking about.

R.

Dear @jaferd and friends:Other advantage for digital and disadvantage for LP is that as everything in digital ( celphones, computers, audio, etc. ) " almost every day " are new advances in the overall digital technology and seems that that digital trend is endless.

In the other side LP has not that kind of development, as a fact the LP " technology " is steady for many years now: just stop it, there are nothing really new on cartridges, TTs, tonearms or the LP it self. Only tiny tiny refiniments that at the end is more of the same. Has no future as true up-grades/up-dates like digital.

For years the best recordings came from D2D recordings ( Sheffield Labs or M&K. ) or those " one side only " Clarity Recordings and Stereophile ones or the DMM by Stockfish or the vintage MoFi UHQR or even the digital LPs from the late 70's early 80's like Telarc or Delos or Denon PCM that 70%-80% of them performs really good and not easy to detect are digital recordings and when digital was just in the begining.
I own several titles of all those kind of recordings that are in a different league that any other LPs.

The last D2D samples I bought came from Acoustic Sounds and are nothing special the old ones named were a lot better recordings.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.