Goes both ways Tim. Always does. The other side is always saying analog lovers like what they hear because of distortion. Something I for one do not totally agree with. Sorry Tom, I think yours is a gross misrepresentation. What's more curious is why anybody let's themselves get pissed off at all. What it boils down to is "strict adherence to fidelity" vs "success at creating an illusion". I sell digital gear, some, really expensive digital gear. I am not ashamed to say that analog really does the latter better IMO. The designers of the digital companies I represent won't be angry with me either. Didier (EERA), Larry (Light Harmonic) and Nishikawa (TechDAS) are all chasing what analog does so well, flow and continuity, while PRESERVING digital's advantage in silence and dynamics particularly in the lower octaves. They aren't doing it by adding distortion.
The problem is the preconceptions of the hardliners of both sides. The digital only guys will imagine pops, ticks, groove noise the moment they hear the word Turntable. Admit it you're one of these guys . The analog only guys will imagine edginess and glare the moment they hear the word digital. So these three designers and many, many more, are trying to make digital that flows better not make a DAC that sounds analog by introducing ticks, pops et al. If you think about it, that actually wouldn't be too hard to do at all. Fact of the matter is, with a quiet table, well set up cart, proper gain staging and most important of all a clean, well pressed LP, levels of noise are low enough that once the music starts playing the existing noise is masked to a very great degree to the point that it in no way detracts. On the other hand turntable manufacturers are doing their thing to get at digital's strengths by making tables ever more immune to acoustic feedback and with ever better speed stability and ever lower self noise.
Maybe someday the two will meet. I don't think we're at that point and I don't know if it will ever happen. I surely don't know what I would do if and when it does. In the meantime, I intend to try and enjoy both as best I can.
Jack - most excellent post indeed I must say! And for me the bolded and underlined particularly hold true and are about as accurate as anyone could describe...even on my less than SOTA setup.