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

@audio-b-dog awaiting your thoughts on MA3i. By the way I keep mine on 24/7. Just turn off the screen. No need to power it down. 

@audphile1 

Thanks. I'll let you know about the MA3i. I leave all solid state gear on 24/7, even my amp which stays cool even while I'm playing it. Pass Labs stuff doesn't have an on/off switch on the front. It wants to stay on all the time. My Meitner MA3 also doesn't have a switch on front to turn it off. The only gear I turned off wrere my ARC tube stuff.

My MSB Analog DAC and MSB transport with Aurender does sound involving. But Vinyl sounds  just a little better.  Difficult to describe .

I find both very satisfying, though different. 

The analog chain starts with a Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum and the Sutherland Dos Locos;  this provides a highly revealing but slightly warm sound, a middle of the hall perspective. 

The digital chain is the Eversolo T8 and the Esoteric K-01XDSE, perhaps more detailed, a front row perspective perhaps.  

Rolling between amplifiers (my 2A3 SET and the C-J 62SE), fed by a Cary SLP 98, possibly is a bigger change than inherent between the digital & analog setups!

The 2A3 amp is an Elekit 8900 with Lundahl OPTs, NOS tubes and paper/wax caps and it has an uncanny rendering of the space whereas the C-J is perhaps more emotional rather than cerebral.

@audio-b-dog my life was rather simple - the only thing I was good at during high school was Mathematics, but only at the level of being good at solving math questions in exams - I think I knew I was not going to be a mathematician so (in the mid '60s) I became a programmer and spent my working life as a software engineer or managing software development.

Now I am retired I am married to an artist/designer who does Holiday cards for MoMA and I do the paper engineering and the creation of the art files in Adobe Illustrator.  Never did I think my name would appear on product sold by a museum!

I think it’s absolutely possible to have the best of both worlds: analog and digital, and enjoy what each does best.

Besides my analog system, I currently use two digital systems. One is a HiFi Rose RS130 connected to a Gustard R30 via I2S. Besides sounding excellent, it also offers a beautiful user experience, both on its built-in screen and on an external monitor.

The other system is sonically superior, although a bit more geek-oriented: a Linux computer running HQPlayer Embedded, doing upsampling and sending 768 kHz PCM files to the Gustard in NOS mode.

It’s impressive how a US$300 software package can compete with DACs that cost many thousands of dollars.