Got a New CD Player and Now I'm Bummed

If you look closely you will see that the Target shelf passes through the back panel of the entertainment center. It is bolted to a piece of 5/8 birch ply that is screwed to wall studs. The table is literally floating within the entertainment center, immune from footfalls and airborne vibration generated by the speakers. Also, I've replaced the MDF shelf on the Target with a Symposium Svelte Shelf".

I agree, that is a very nice solution. However, my guess is that you will still get increased sound pressure levels inside the enclosure and are therefore susceptible to airborne vibration. You could measure the sound pressure level using a SPL meter inside the unit and at several places around your rooms to compare. Try several frequencies to check.

As for the analog-digital comparison: I agree my friends Esoteric beats his Scout on several levels as well. That is not true anymore when you step up to a more top end table - my compact DPS with Lyra Argo and JLTI phono does pretty much everything better than the Esoteric. The differences couldn't be more pronounced in my system. But then my SET based system may just resolve these differences more as Paulfolbrecht indicated.

i have a clearaudio ambition cmb with a Lyra Helikon SL and has recently beaten the crap out of a friend's new digital rig: stereophile's digital product of the year, the 16000 dollar chord transport and 64 bit dac. Any good analogue setup can easily kill almost any digital frontend, with an exception of dCS's recent Scarlatti, which begins to approach analogue, but its not there yet...

I don't quite understand how you think "The table ....is immune from footfalls and airborne vibration generated by the speakers." Isolated from footfalls to a large extent but form speaker airborne vibes, now way. I have to agree with Restock that the cabinet maybe actually reinforcing low frequencies and then focusing them to the TT. If the TT was in an open situtaion the sound waves have less of a chance to be focused. Try a stethescope on the plinth or support shelf and see what your hear. You'll always have airborne vibes to contend with if your TT in in the same room as your speakers.
I would try adding a PH5. The improved phono performance btwn that and a SP16 is huge. The bass improvements alone are amazing. It's a really great sounding phonostage. I think adding a PH5 would be better than adding a LS25 simply because a good sep. phono will be better than a better preamp w/phono, not to knock a LS25.
Then a better cartridge. I think a mistake is thinking that a TT under $2K can't do a similairly priced cartridge justice. I have a friend with a HW19 MK3/RB300 I sold him my Benz Ruby2. Compared to the Denon MC and his ClearAudio MM there was no contest. Is he getting all from Ruby2 with his TT, probably not but his treble is to die for. If he added a PH5 it would sound amazing.

The ARC LS25 doesn't have a phonostage 'LS= Line Stage Only' and requires an external phonostage. I was just saying that the higher end LS26,LS26,Ref2 all provide superior soundstaging to the SP16 and LS16.. so both the CD player and phonostage would improve..

So ideally upgrading the Phonostage and Linestage would provide a huge improvement. Even the cheap Dynavector P75 Mk2 so you can use the enhanced mode for your current cart and upgrade later.