At this point, I don't think the issue is digital or analog. The issue is the recording process and the mastering. I have a few - but only a very few - CD's that sound like the musicians are right there in the room with me.
I actually have quite a few CDs that sound that way.
Analog vs. digital is not the issue to me either. However, I have found that certain storage methods have better fidelity than others.
I have found that most of the classical music I have is well-recorded and mastered. Blues and jazz are sometimes done well and sometimes not. (Some of the best performances are old and the recording not so good, but the performance itself makes up for it.)
A lot of more recent blues, jazz, and pop recordings are of pretty horrible quality. Even some older stuff that has been recently remastered sounds like crap. They literally squeeze the life out of it.
We can only hope that they didn't screw up the master tapes with the newest stuff and only mangled it during the mastering process. Then we might stand some chance of getting them with better fidelity some day when the record companies have started taking their meds again. (Or after consumers revolt and start lynching record company execs.)
