Welcome NZastro.
I too have an old Linn, although its my "3rd string" table. And yet, i am firmly in the other camp - almost always prefer my digital ( and have among my DAC choices, a Denefrips, and not as expensive as yours).
That said i attribute much of my preference to the sorry state of most records. Let's put aside specialty audiophile releases - i buy for music. And when i compare apples-to-apples CD (well, CD ripped FLAC to Roon....) to LP, the CD almost always wins. Why? The album has so many flaws. Wear from too many playings in college. Crap pressings. Poor mastering/mixing (often improved in remasters BTW), on and on. great records can sound fantastic.
But great CDs too can sound fantastic. Oddy, many of my best are actually 50-years old 3-channel recordings done on stuff like Studer A-77s or custom-built rigs like Bob Fine made for Mercury LP. Those are truly music with nearly none of the digital side effects. Ditto many old Verve and Blue Note stuff.
Apples to Apples i have compared myriad rock records and 99% of the time prefer the CD. Years back that was not true.
If i was always playing some pristine, small-batch LPs - i might well prefer vinyl. But alas I don't, and like won't, unless many performers are coming back from the grave or some label decides that tiny markets are their thing. (oh, and I'm also not **re-** buying 100s of records at $40/ea either).
The fact that you have rediscovered how great analog *can* be is wonderful. Celebrate it. But if your LP12 truly beats your terminator on true apples to apples, i think you may have some issues in your digital playback. I cannot imagine what since i have no magic cables and no tweeks, just really well set up equipment, custom power supplies, proper impedance matching, blah blah.
I have always maintained that the recording determines the quality; next mastering, and all the stuff we agonize over comes in a distannt 3rd --> 10th. You cannot make a bad recording sound good, and a really great one is enjoyable over a Bluetooth speaker.
G
