Very interesting, I’ve just had a Brinkmann Balance with a Lyra cartridge on demo at home for a week as a potential replacement for my hi spec Linn. It’s a beautiful piece of kit, no doubt about that. I have a huge vinyl collection and want to get the best out of it. But equally I like listening to new music without having to buy it and love the ease of playing digital, either from my ripped cds (on a Melco) or streaming with Qobuz.
The Brinkmann certainly matches my Bartok (or vice versa) for overall sound quality when playing an audiophile vinyl record. But the Linn is VERY close behind.
Clearly the gaps between tracks are dead silent with a digital source and the background slight surface noise of vinyl is always there. Occasional clicks are annoying with vinyl.
BUT with a dCS the old argument that “vinyl is just that bit warmer” or that intangible “vinyl is just more real, or more involving” was very hard to hear in this demo, because the dCS products are just so damn good.
I like the ‘event’ of putting on a record but then I can be disappointed if it crackles - and I clean everything!
My conclusion - it’s horses for courses. I like playing analogue sourced vinyl (esp 50/60’s jazz) but I can’t see much point buying recent digitally recorded music on vinyl. So I’ll keep my Linn for now - there is simply not 20 grands worth of difference to justify ‘an upgrade’ but both vinyl and digital have a place in my listening.