Back to analog ..was it a mistake???

I never got rid of my LP's. The early sound of digital was ok, but not good enough for me to dump vinyl. Present day digital is great (not to mention that most of the music available is on CD or download). But I'm not going to rebuy all my music in CD format just to get rid of the vinyl and its issues.
But, (knock on wood) if my house burned down and all my vinyl was lost I wouldn't attempt to replace it. I'd just get CD or downloads.
Vinyl is benefiting from the same nostalgia effect as steam trains or antique cars.

I put my analog system on the back burner for many years while I focused on dialing in digital and coincidentially accumulating a huge collection of music not available on vinyl. I was pretty happy and I finally put the analog system away.

The the day for Goodwill donations approached and I was looking at all of that stuff and my cherished, but not often used collection of LP's, and couldn't make up my mind. One of the items I had to give away was a Denon 61F TT that I was given by my now deceased father in law. I had never set it up - it just sat in a box NOS! After all it was just a Denon with a cheapo Shure cartridge. :-)

Well I was curious so before I gave it away I thought I'd set it up and see if it was as bad as I expected. I used an old Magus for a pre-amp and played a good LP with lots of sonic potential including dynamics and bass. The thing that amazed me was the dynamics in the bass. Very tight!!!! Whoa, that's new!!! After a while I recognized that I was also hearing far too much info from the grooves that I had never heard before. Not music but groove noise. It was unnatural and I knew I wouldn't listen much. I then put on my old cartridge from yesteryear (a Benz Glider). It sounded much better. In fact most of the surface noise went missing. I changed a few tubes and it sounded even better. Then I dragged out my old ARC Pre and tuned it with my cartridge, still using the cheapo Denon, and the sound is now quite good. In fact better than my system with my probably poorly set up old Oracle.

I enjoyed the vinyl set up greatly but not for the ultimate difference in the acoustics so much as the ability to listen to some of my favorite old recordings on occasion. So long as I don't think of how it sounds compared to my digital system I'm good. The tics pops and other extraneous noise was still there but if the music is important you can listen thru it. And if the music is not worth it because of this noise ditch the disc!

IMHO analog is a fussy system and takes a lot of time both in set up and use. You really have to enjoy the process and, I think more importantly, the music you possess to make it worth while. For someone coming new to audio I would never recommend vinyl unless it was as a means to buy a lot of music to expand their exposure to, knowledge of, and collections of music (especially classical music) on the cheap, music not available on CD's.

FWIW. Only you can make the call on whether it is worth it or not to pursue analog further.

What CDP are you comparing it to? Is the Linn sited on a good platform? It might be worth gambling a few hundred more on a top NOS MM cartridge(e.g Ortofon M60FL or M60E from Willian Thakker). This should handily beat the Denon and find the soul in your LPs.

If your speakers disappear with digital but not with phono, then something is probably not right with your phono setup (not uncommon).

Is your cleaning method working? How d you clean the records?

How did you pick the equipment you did? Was there a plan to make sure they work well together or was the decision process more random, based solely on reviews or such? Have you verified everything is set up correctly and in good working order?

Also, what is the rest of your system (amp. pre-amp, digital source, etc.?)

Sorry for all the questions, but these are so many things that can go wrong with vinyl playback that it is worth considering everything when something is not performing to expectations.

BTW what are your expectations regarding vinyl? Records can be hit or miss from record to record, more so than with CDs these days I have found. You ned to manage your expectations. Some records should sound very good and satisfy most, but many will never satisfy a most highly discriminative listener.

FWIW< I use a Linn Axis + DL103R and the phono pre-amp built into my ARC sp16 and the sound is very similar to my digital as a whole, more or less. Everything is listenable and clean sounding at a minimum to excellent in most ways when things are clicking with particular decent to good recordings, digital or analog.

I've had a similar experience. Great CD sound and disappointing LP sound. But that has changed dramatically in the past few weeks thanks to suggestions from A'Gon members, a local dealer and much tweaking of VTA, VTF, a lot more time for cartridge break-in, and some simple table isolation devices from Herbies Audio my modest Rega LP rig now significantly outperforms my Bryston BCD1.
One surprising finding was the disk I was using to judge LP playback quality - Dire Straits' Pricate Investigations brand new double album on 180G vinyl ($50)was significantly lower qualty than some $3 used vinyl from a local record store. I'm pretty burned on new vinyl.
As someone astutely pointed out, analog systems are fussy - even the supposedly plug-and-play systems.