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

@audphile1 

Thankyou for the info. I will be evaluating the Meitner MA3 for quite a while. I'm now playing an old 44.1 ablum of Bruno Walter conducting Brahms' 4th. At 96 kHz and above, the Meitner is amazing. I'm checking it out on an older 44.1 album. Not nearly as good at hi-rez, but very listenable. I like old Bruno's interpretation too.

I can get a glimmer of what your upgrade did. Focused things, if I can use one word. Perhaps like going from an older tube preamp to a newer, tighter one. If I can never upgrade it, though, I could listen to it like this and be happy.

Yes a lot depends on a source material. No matter how good the DAC is, garbage in garbage out. 
I’m fairly certain that you will ditch playing CDs unless the recording is something you can’t find on streaming or streaming sounds bad due to bad quality source, which is the remastered crap in most cases. 

@audphile1 

With the Moon, CDs sounded better than streaming, I think because I have a good transport and the digital signal is more ordered. When I have testing time, I will listen to a CD versus streaming. Also a vinyl album against streaming. I will be testing this puppy for quite a while.

Enjoy! Keep an open mind though that some albums will sound better on vinyl and some will sound better streaming. Once you have high quality equipment, once again, it comes down to the quality of the source. Key is to be able to enjoy both formats and the unique attributes of each. Comparing is fine but I wouldn’t make it into a habit. 

@audio-b-dog - congratulations in finding a satisfying digital solution within budget. When compared to analog, usually one must spend a bit to reach a satisfying level.