How much do you need to spend to get digital to rival analog?

Dear @atdavid : Exist a lot of misunderstood about digital operation ( including my self where I'm way ignorant of several " things . ) about
DSD nd PCM DAC operation.

There are several DAC chip manufacturers s: AD, AKM, BB, SABRE and the like.

My humble CDP came from Denon that use BB/TI DAC ( 32/192 ) and this goes around PCM technology but I remember that Denon was one of the few LP recording digital company in the early times. Other was Telarc and latter on Varese Saravande, Chalfont, Delos and more.

Telarc used Soundstream  digital PCM recorder and I own all Telarc recordings where many of them are even today very hard to beat about its quality level performance of the music information in those LP grooves. Not all Telarc are good recordings.

In the case of Denon they designed and builded its own PCM digital recording machine with some " advantages " over the Soundstream standard in those old times.
I know this because I own several Denon PCM LPs where as with Telarc many are first rate recordings and some others not so well . So Denon has a lot of knowledge levels not only for digital recording but how to achieve the best and more from those BB/TI DAC chips.

Almost no one cares a bout Denon as a CDP manufacturer but they know in deep about and they know too what goes around analog because Denon already has deep knowledge levels manufacturing LP analog rig along analog recordings and electronics design too and Denon was side to side with CBS. So they should know something on each single side of overall analog and digital subjects by multiple first hand experiences and skills and its CDP are non-expensive units.

R:

I have a half dozen Denon digital recorded LPs. They have good sound. Denon made 2,039 digital LPs/CDs (visit Discogs.com to view) with many original recordings. Denon 1300, 1500 and 1600 CD players were very good for their time. Today, a cheap Sony Bluray player beats the pants off of them. I have a 1300 and 1500 (as well as about 30 other 1980s/1990s) CD players for sale, cheap!

I already sold all my CDs except the special ones like my RT personally signed copy of Shoot Out the Lights. I downloaded them all to a hard drive and sold them to Bullmoose Records for store credit which I turned into records:) It took I think it was two months and 6 trips to Bullmoose. Now I have all that room for more Records and another 4 TB left on the hard drive for Hi Res downloads. Does life get any better? I think the JVC Direct To Disk LP are as good as LPs get not that there are not others out there particularly in the classical realm. I was never big on Telarc disks mostly because I had versions of all the stuff they did by artists I liked better. High quality recordings are no good if you don't care for the performance. The first popular digital recording was Ry Cooder's Bop Till You Drop. Great music but is is missing a little of the sparkle the best recordings have.
Thanx again atdavid for clearing the air. One other comment to add is that negative feedback is not the big bad boogeyman. Done correctly it is vital for some designs and "no feedback" is not necessarily better. 
Mahgister, theoretically you are right but sometimes you have to make compromises and testing a rig in everyone's home is not practical so you can only say, "in this room with this system." Frankly, all of use are guessing based on our experience. In reality I can't even comprehend the question because my turntables cost a whale of a lot more than $3K and my digital playback system cost less than 1/3rd of my cheapest turntable.
I'm guessing again but I would say when it comes to serious listening digital and analog get an equal share of my attention. I am also not picking out the music based on sound quality but because it is the music I want to hear at the time. If I were given the opportunity to buy an older analog recording in remastered Vinyl or Hi Res digital I would try to go for the one that I though sounded better. If I can't determine that I just get them both:) I also think it is obvious that digital is a much better value than Analog. It takes much less money to get to a near SOTA set up. 

mijostyn

For sure you are right, most of the times we must compare and choose...

But each for their own potentials, digital and analog, are only interactive elements of design in an unbreakable chain that is so mixed that choosing absolutely for one and rejecting the other is neither possible nor desirable, choosing is only possible in a particular context actualizing some possibilities for some people taste and room and system design ... This is my point...My best wishes to you...

Dear @fleschler : For CDs Denon is more than enough. Please listen the old Gladiator motion picture soundtrack CD ( in a Denon 1600. ) against its today LP counterpart. As other gentlemans posted in this thread we don’t need to listen 4x DSD and the like to " note " the today superiority of digital alternative. I like both alternatives but for a tiny different reasons.

Digital makes many things rigth but one of them is the way it handled the bass range where LPs just falls to handle with the same " true and aplomb ".

R.