Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

I almost got discouraged by the effort that it would take to get good vinyl sound. The expert level the budget needed and all the odds that the chain is suboptimal. 

Recently I have heard good a good vinyl rig. The whole vinyl chain was around 25k. It was indeed better that the 12k digital chain it was compared to.  “more flesh to the bone” more chest in the voice”.

But that was only with some great sounding albums. Others where good but not magical but overall there was still more magnitude to the whole sound. Do you reach that level with a lower budget? 

At home and after a few records my digital setup was not disappointing.

I had no direct comparison any more. 

But to know there is more and to know what it takes to get there make it a tough choice. 

In my opinion It can only be solved with peace of mind and acceptance. There will always be something better in CD / DaC and Vinyl. The fact that there is no objective comparison to be made, makes me the judge of all decisions.

For me the decision tonget in to vinyl “again” is though one. This discussion gave me perspective. 

In the mean time listing to music stored on digital formats gives me pleasure and satisfaction. 

Who knows. 

 

I think of the whole digital/analog thing as something of a race. In my own setup, digital will sometimes race ahead, but will fall back again after an improvement on the analog side. And so on.....
IMO, digital can sound extremely good nowadays. And so can analog.

Very good digital and very good analogue have distinctive sounds.  If you grew up being accustomed to one vs. the other, that might determine your preference.  When MP3 had become the the most prominent form of music storage/delivery, a professor did a fairly large study that showed that a large majority of younger listeners actually preferred MP3 processed music over music delivered at full CD resolution; familiarity breeds content(ment).

I agree with Al, and others above, that, if setup is the issue (and not just taste), the most likely culprit is loading.  A sound lacking in treble and having less "air" usually means to much loading (too LOW a value of the resistance in parallel).  I would try the cartridge with no loading or extremely high resistance value such as 47k ohms.  

To me, the reason to have both an analogue and a digital setup has more to do with available content than with one being better than the other.  If you listen to classical music, you pretty much MUST have a digital setup because there is essentially zero new recordings being offered as vinyl records.  Whether it is a difference in digital vs. analogue, deteriorating master tapes or differences in mastering (most likely culprit), reissued music from analogue tapes often sound not nearly as good as the original records (that includes expensive reissued vinyl); if you want the best sound, it is often the original issue.  Some original analogue records were pretty crappy sounding in sound quality and the digital reissues are superior because of better mastering (e.g., 1970's DG classical recordings).  

Finding the enjoyment of good operatics.  

One is not better than the other... They are just different sounding.For the op: I say the main two fails: #1 is your phono box. using a built in phono. Second, how LONG has the turntable been in use? IS the cartridge even broken in? (A cartridge is a mechanical device, it need to get used some before making judgments on how it compares to some other device)                     
Also agree on fail if all you used was one record vs one CD. Female voice is not gonna be pretty on an unbroken-in cartridge.