I find it interesting that you mention both processing and compression. These were two big factors in me getting back into vinyl after a hiatus of four years. I regard that time as a failed experiment and a big misstep. My original decision was a matter of head over heart. It turned out that the heart had been right.
After a couple of years, I experienced remorse over selling my turntable despite upgrading the streaming capabilities of my system. Having seen the enthusiasm of friends and my sons for vinyl, I asked my dealer to lend me a Klimax LP12 that he had taken from a customer in part exchange. Its only difference to my old turntable was that it had the Urika II phono stage. This carries out the RIAA conversion in the digital domain. In tandem with the improved clock of my Klimax DSM /3 Hub, it made a huge difference to the sound quality of vinyl on an LP12. Despite the upgrades that I’d made to the streaming side, I found that generally vinyl trounced streaming on my system.
Now, there are some remastered records that don’t cut it in comparison to the original pressings. This appears to be down to poor mastering. It’s not just pop music that suffers from over compression - rock music and other genres are also affected. The crystal clarity that comes with the digital formats is not enough for me. I also need the excitement that vinyl can bring. Perhaps, classical music enthusiasts value different things in music reproduction. Certainly they were among the early adapters to CD due to the absence of surface noise. My reaction then was that the early CD experience also took away the (expletive deleted) music.
I can’t claim to understand what it is that gives vinyl its special quality, but to me it’s just more enjoyable particularly for prolonged listening sessions. It gets more thrilling as time passes, whereas streaming becomes slightly tiresome in comparison.
