Your "eureka" digital moment

For me, it was this Parasound, I think it was called a cpd1000 or something I bought for a hundred bucks...supremely listenable!  Very polite, but I could listen to jazz for hours on end!  Was very sad when the laser finally died.  But, the sound of that player still guides what I'm looking for from digital to this day.

My ’oh $hit’ moment came with my first pioneer CD changer in ’83...didn’t like it, but kept it and my TT and waited; there had to be some way to get better digital sound...everything sucked, really, but the upper mids and highs in particular...yuk. Fast forward to 2010. Stumbled into electronic noise reduction by way of Alan Maher Designs. Started off buying a $25 gizmo that seemed to help out a bit. One thing led to another and have kept buying more and more stuff from AMD steadily since then and am now in a position (albeit 5 years and about $10k later) in which I can use any digital player I would ever care to and they would all sound supremely analog. No need even for expensive wiring. All the problems there were with CD playback are now gone and it is no longer an issue for me. I have all of the convenience and none of the bad sound. Took a lot for me to get there really, but that’s where I am and that’s where I know I’ll stay from here on out. My "eureka" moment is every time I listen now. Ditched the inexpensive TT I had some time ago and, since about 3 or 4 years ago, have never looked back.

I thought I had always been missing something with digital based on everything I read about vinyl. I finally purchased a very nice $6000 analog front end and had my eurika moment. This was about 8 years ago. I realized my digital front end was better and never had to wonder again. The clicks, pops, surface noise drove me crazy! Underneath those snap, crackle and pops the music sounded no better. 

1986/87, Yamaha stack at the local mall stereo shop- still impresses me.

Vinyl guys will jump in saying snap,crackle & pop are due to improperly cleaned records & you need the $2500.00+ vac. cleaner to really hear vinyl at it's best,LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!