Does anyone have a digital system that is as involving as their analogue front end?

It isn’t very difficult to install a 500 dollar software on a mac, run your dac into it and have the sound of analog master tape forever.

If that’s too difficult, you could always get the Daniel Hertz Maria amp (a bit more cost). It is a streamer+dac+preamp+amp all in one box with the same technology built in and you shall have the sound of pristine analog master tape from anything digital.

And then, we shall hold hands at the top of the hill and look down upon the masses fumbling in darkness..cursing at their cartridges, washing their vinyl records in the bathtub everyday, praying to their phonostages, etc.. hoping for some miracle.

As an added bonus, you can sell your turntable, cartridge, phono preamp, vinyl records, etc and make a lot of your money back. The music library shall expand from 3 great pressings on repeat all year (or else everything falls apart) to thousands of albums. You may finally experience all kinds of artists you’ve never heard of.

Above mentioned solution is just for guys chasing analog sound with their digital rigs because some turntable sales guy fooled ’em into thinking analog sound is the holy grail of sound. It’s a great lie. Well executed digital sound is its own flavor, that can stand on its own pedestal.

If you also truly appreciate well executed digital sound...which you should... you should keep a nice separate digital chain as well. 

The Daniel Hertz digital processing is just for the master tape analog sound and to get saved from all this expensive analog hardware foolery. Turntables and records are just too sloppy and handicapped. 

@maprik  wrote

So now I gotta buy a Mac and run all my music through it??? 

A slightly longer no, this time.

I have spent a lot of time recently rearranging my network to get the best digital sound that I can. This has reduced the nasties in digital significantly. I have listened to a few high res albums and am delighted how loud I can now go with being fatigued by what I am hearing.

The last digital album I listened to all the way through was Caravanserai by Santana. Now, I have swapped to vinyl for then same album. It is a completely different level of listening experience, more involving, immersive, realistic and enjoyable. Better in every way possible, bar a little surface noise in the quiet parts. It isn’t even close.

I should declare the I have currently got Linn’s new dual Utopik Klimax Radikal on loan, so I won’t be at these giddy heights after I return it on Monday. Maybe, I am doing something wrong with digital, but that’s the way I’m hearing it.

@audio-b-dog I used to have an analog system as well as digital and made the decision to focus on one path.  It's never apples to apples but I have heard some very high end analog systems that are great but also digital systems that, at least to me, are comparable.  This, along with the convenience and essentially endless library of new music caused me to choose digital.  Dollars certainly do not always correlate to great sound and I have friends that probably have at least equal sound quality systems and have made better financial choices!  

@deep_333 

(Fremer is 80 years old....... a.k.a age associated hearing degradation coupled with decades of severe psychological bias. Fremer tasked with a/b comparisons in a blindfold will sink quicker than a rock in the pacific and become fully irrelevant.)

You are repeating a prejudice about ageing. We all lose our ability to hear high frequencies with age. This does not affect our appreciation of  music per se because that is dependent on our ability to distinguish tiny timing differences between harmonics. Our ability to hear these timing differences does not necessarily deteriorate with age to the same extent as with high frequencies. You are slandering Michael Fremer along with all older people.

Yes Qobuz connect is great with MA3i. The Mconnect apps are crap as far as UI goes.