Analog invites you to turn up the volume

I made the same observation that vinyl sounded more natural and was more emotionally involving in most systems leading up to around 2010 (since 1982 when the CD was released). But the advance of DACs and streamers and ancillary equipment has been huge and now only true when component choices make each leg sound the way they do. They could (with different component choices) sound the opposite.

@macg19

I am not trying to be argumentative, but add some detail to my comments. While the very significant shortcomings of digital equipment lasted until… well let’s say the last ten years. Now digital can sound pretty much as the designer desires. I have used many phonostage, turntables, DACs, cartridges, streamers and CD players over the last fifty years.

As an example, I configured my current systems (you can see it under my user ID) to very specifically sound like real music in detail and in gestalt. In preparation I attended the symphony in 7th row center seats for a decade… and acoustic jazz concerts. Then I constructed my main system, both analog and digital to sound that way. While vinyl can sound very slightly better or not quite as good depending on the particular pressing they sound the same. I could easily configure a vinyl system to sound less analog than my digital system simply with choice of phono stage and/or cartridge.

The overall presentation characteristics are created by your equipment not the media. Each leg, digital or analog is a chain of electronics that produce the characteristics you hear at the end. One can sound exceptionally better or worse or different depending on that chain.