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

@daniel25 

About $7500 into Linn tt, about 8k into streamer and Dac. Digital is very good, but gets bested every time by tt and vinyl records. Keep in mind im not just streaming, the innuos is also a cd player and I have a pretty large collection of cds. The benifit is it’s convenient, but if I want to lose myself into the music it’s vinyl every time.

Until recently, I completely shared your view about preferring vinyl. Now I am getting a better sound out of digital, I am not so sure. It appears to now be doing the same for me as vinyl. I guess that all will become clear in the next couple of weeks when my turntable is up and running again after a repair.

Rightly or wrongly, I regard there as essentially only being two formats. Those where music is stored in an analogue form on say a vinyl record and those where it is stored digitally on a CD or in a file. Whether we play CDs directly or rip them to Flac files first or if there are digital steps in vinyl replay are both secondary. 

@newton_john @daniel25 

I have wanted to be many things if I could start from youth again. A conductor is at the top of the list, but I don't "understand" music as a musician or conductor must. I learned to paint. When I say "learned," I mean that I was able to get past my conscious mind and allow my unconsciouos to take over. The same with writing and poetry. I can mostly get out of my conscious mind to hear music without symbolic thoughts (chatter in my mind) to interrupt my enjoyment. The more music sounds like the real thing (live) the easier it is for me to get involved, especially with rock n' roll.

One of the things I would have really liked to do is to study philosophy and write about asthetics. Music is a wonderful example. Great composers are not simply tapping into their unconscious minds, they are influenced and inspired by non-symbolic structures we all share. So, if I'm listening on my Tivoli radio and I am able to tap into those structures perhaps from Jung's Collective Unconscious? (I have not been able to do the rigorous study I would have liked to do) or something more Divine? all humanity seems to be able to share those structures that I will call transcendental, because I can't go back and study philosophy and find a more exact word. 

@audphile1 

My MA3i is coming Monday. Would you suggest that I burn it in first, or that I just burn it in while listening to it, which is what I usuallly do with new equipment? But if its sound without being burned in will give me a negative opinion of it, I will burn it in silently. 

@audio-b-dog 

It’d be nice to have more than one life, to follow more than one path. My alternative would to have been to be a musician, but I wouldn’t want to have missed out on the other things that I’ve done.

I was fortunate to pick up the threads again in my forties. And joined my first band at nearly fifty. It was actually more like being press ganged than joining. I found the great thing about playing with a band is that it doesn’t really matter what you do because the other guys carry on regardless. So you get the opportunity to allow your unconscious to take over and improvise. 

I learned to paint

Is it like white washing a picket fence? 😉

It’s wonderful that you took up a hobby that’s great for your mental health and soul.