Hi Coen,
I feel sad for what is happening... I suppose that all depends where one comes from. Or the amount of passion we inject in it.
In 2009 I decided to rip my CDs. First it was the ease of use and the ability to play music with my 2.1 computer speakers that drove me. The only "label of quality" for me was to not convert anything into MP3. At the time I was absolutely not aware that many people were already doing this to play with their main sound system. Tweaks, external dac,... I wasn't familiar with those. For me it was wonderful not to manipulate the CDs anymore.
My decision about my turntable and vinyls would come a few years later. My turntable was in a cardboard box, so were my vinyls. I was not warm with the idea to go back at them, maybe because what was happening in my life at that time was simply not motivating enough ? I don't recall.
One day I read about dacs and asked some questions around. A guy that installs Sonos like systems in residences and commercial buildings told me he had a Bryston dac. The cost was "high" for my standards but I decided to go for it.
Then all started from that.
I could go on with this, but all in all what I am trying to convey is that what I hear today is so much better than what I was hearing before, with my CD player and my turntable (at least it was different). But of course, it always comes to what you were used to listen to before going the computer audiophile route.
I actually use 2 PCs: one that was bought 8 years ago and one from 2012. The older one is used as my "all purpose" PC and music server (Core 2 duo 6850 3ghz with 8GB of ram, Windows 7 x64 pro). It is still very reliable and I use it each and every day for all tasks that I can think of.
The other is the "audio PC" and it should last between 8-10 more years. It does nothing except playing music, that is when I feel the pleasure to. It is idling most of the time with XXHighEnd, Minimized OS mode, os-ram drive, etc... The weird thing is that I had to send my Seasonic Platinum 1kw PSU under warranty (it refused to start one morning - 7 years warranty on it).
I have chosen not to compare vinyl to digital. I do the nightmare it was, with all the vinyl flaws (bad copy from worn out matrix, uncentered hole, warped record, "clicks" and "pops"). All the times I went back at the store to change a defective LP (was happening with 2 out of 3 LPs). You don't imagine the number of times I had to do this...
Does digital has a digital sound. For me it is a "yes", but with the NOS1 (soon to be a NOS1a in a few days), XXHighEnd and all that I have learned from Peter and others around, I will never go back to anything that was here before. This is just me but the older I get, the more lazy I am and even if someone was to prove me that vinyl or R2R tape is way better, I will not go back. "I gave".
But I sure learned that I have to adjust my expectations. My hearing will never be what it was many years ago, my sensitivity is not that good either, so I just take what I can and appreciate...
A friend told me once that it was valuable to try to change our angle of vision when something negative was happening... I won't say it is easy to do, but the more I advance in life, I feel less "edgy" about certain things I can't really change...
Not that this is of some help, but I felt the desire to share this with you and our community
Regards,
Alain