I really don’t care one bit which format anyone prefers and the reasons why. The endless debate about which format sounds better and the insistence on the part of some that I can’t possibly hear what I do hear gets kinda tiresome. What I do care about is what my ears tell me and my ears tell me that there is a fundamental difference between the sound of analog and the sound of digital. To one degree or another, this fundamental difference can be heard at any price point. As one climbs the ladder on the way to SOTA equipment and assuming intelligent/synergistic system matching of gear this difference becomes less important, if not less obvious. Everyone has different tolerance levels to ticks and pops, the inconveniences of one format vs the other, and those or other things can be deal breakers; especially at the lowest price points.
I listen primarily, not exclusively, to music that is minimally processed and mostly acoustic in nature and FOR ME, analog recordings simply do a better job, OVERALL, of mimicking the sound and the feeling of music as heard live. This is not to say that digital doesn’t sound good and it is true that sometimes it does a better job OVERALL; but, that fundamental difference is always there. Simple as that.
I listen primarily, not exclusively, to music that is minimally processed and mostly acoustic in nature and FOR ME, analog recordings simply do a better job, OVERALL, of mimicking the sound and the feeling of music as heard live. This is not to say that digital doesn’t sound good and it is true that sometimes it does a better job OVERALL; but, that fundamental difference is always there. Simple as that.