Vinyl vs. top-notch digital

Jdaniel13, I understood what you meant. This does come up from time to time. I would agree with Audiofeil that the arm was probably the source of the issue. FWIW, I've been using a 20x2H for the last few weeks and before that a 10x5. It is definitely not the cartridges. I hope you didn't get so discouraged that you gave up. And, no, you don't have to spend
mega bucks to get there.

Be nice, Bill. OH, you were nice. :-)

I think, some analog Set Ups can create ear cancer. Analog reproduction has a lot to do with precision and the knowledge what-is-responsible-for-what....
Digital can be ok, when the Mastering of this silver thing was made from someone who was not totally deaf. but I think, after 30 years of sonic revolution we are no in the Hi-Rez era and all fans from that deserve it. Let's wait a few years and some will say, they heard a felt drum in a dark cave and that was the most natural sound they ever heard...

Dan, that's very interesting. I started with the Dyna 20xH and within 30 seconds (of listening to the opening of Rodrigo's Concerto) I was hooked. I must say that upgrading to the XX2 cart better fleshed-out the sound at the end of records but obviously not enough. I bought the Mint Lp protractor as a last resort but never thought about the arm.

For me this argument is a very simple one to answer....

Listening to vinyl for several months at a time before switching to a CD based session (and this because someone requested a current album that I didn't own a vinyl version of) pretty much tells me everything I need to know about each medium.

Newly acquired, unfamiliar, music becomes a hypnotic experience on vinyl, but a chore to listen to on CD.
There is a feeling you can take the most "difficult" music e.g. 15 Shostakovich String quartets and listen to all of them in sequence with ease. With CD, I challenge anyone to get past one Shostakovich string quartet before reaching for the Iron Maiden or Killing Joke as light relief....

The popular belief of CD as strictly a "background medium" is not inaccurate. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the theory...
As for the "high res digi formats" that cropped up in the 90's etc. If they were any good, the market would be bulging with them, we'd all be using them now and vinyl would be a distant memory.
I rest my case.

Overall...I do belong to the "vinyl is superior" camp BUT there are times when one track, of one record, in one "incarnation" of digital based system will beat the same track, of a particular pressing, in one "incarnation" of a different vinyl based system.

In other words...Judging which sounds better must be done on a system to system , track to track, case to case basis. The heated arguments begin when we make blanket statements about unheard, unfamiliar systems, of unknown cd or vinyl pressings, of which we have no reference to be able to make informative and meaningful discussions and statements just dogmatic statements.

My digital front end is pleasing to listen to. I say this against the backdrop of my vinyl front end listening. But the pleasantness of my digital front end must be interpreted in the context of how each independent system of my system, ie, my tube amp, my preamp, my speaker cables, etc, is contributing to the final "digital" sound i am hearing.

To date, with the best moments of my vinyl playback i have not been able to get the quality of timbre from my digital front end that i get from my vinyl front end. On occasion, if the vta is out or the recording is just ok, then the virtues of vinyl sometimes seem "awol".

To sort through this maze of differences in outcome, i prefer to judge on a case to case basis as listed in the first two paragraphs of this post.