IMHO, you can still get good sound from a rig like that, but you really do owe it to yourself to hear a good TT. When you switch back to digital, you'd think someone sucked the emotion out of the music. I am not saying that one needs just vinyl or just digital but you really need to listen to vinyl in all it's glory...
Grubyhalo, my first entry in HiFi was a Dual TT with an Ortofon Concorde cartridge. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I must have played Pink Floyd's Wall some 500 times on the system till my mother would hum and say the words !! She is 85 now and she yet remembers The Wall !!
I have over a 1000 tapes with me that I have enjoyed on a Sony Walkman many times.
What I am going to say now is completely different.
I am not denying / refuting / supporting any way of playing music. I just want to mention what I had read Robert Harley say is his book, 'The Complete Guide to High-End Audio'. Though I don't remember the exact words, what he says goes something like this. In the course of auditioning 100s of systems, Robert, when he played any music, would not listen to the song at all, but look for issues - noise, imaging, transparency, emotion and some issues that he himself had created. Slowly he realised he had stopped enjoying music altogether. He then had to work hard on himself to enjoy music, and close his mind to all the issues. In essence, he created two Roberts - one who would enjoy music played anyway even in the car, and another who would look at systems critically.
I have also learned to do that. When I am in a car, when I am listening to Worldspace on my cheap Sony, or using a iPOD, I enjoy the music, sing along, tap my feet, do a jig, and many times scream my head off with Kishore Kumar or Chris De Burg. My screaming, of course, will be completely 'besur'.
You are saying about emotion. I have written about Amin Sayani's 'Geetmala Ki Chhaon Me'. All CD based and completely remastered. I also have some of the same songs copied from the tape directly with all the scratch noises. Even if I tell myself that the version with the scratch noises is the original, the Geetmala CD provides the same emotion albeit cleanly. I am sure you will say some frequencies have been cut off, but frankly I switched between these two many times, and I cannot make out any difference.
As part of auditioning the Oppo 983, I have ripped many songs into wave files for comparison with the original CD. Strangely, I felt the wave files had more openness and clarity. This is on the same equipment with the 983 playing both the CD and the wave file.
Let us not chase imaginary 'prefect' systems and spend time and money being unhappy. We are not people with infinite amount of money in our pockets. That does not mean we cannot enjoy music.
One of the advantages of going with technology is that research will be done and economies of scale will be available continuously. Would any other technology bring you the quality of DAC and sound card that Asus has brought out for Rs.8000?
I have read a lot about the so called 'resurgence' of vinyl, particularly in the US. Best Buy is allocating all of EIGHT racks and keeping 100 records in each of their shop !! I have read soothsayers sound the deathknell of CDs and digital music. But it is Steve Jobs who is keeping a 100 million people happy and keeping his coffers full. Companies such as Krell, Arcam, NAD, and others who swore against non-analog systems are quietly introducing digital players and systems based upon digital media.
Given a choice between using a TT - worrying about getting the records first, keeping the records clean, washing them, worrying about the weight and counter weights, the geometry of the system - against all this - take a PC based song that can be played and replayed a 1000 times with the same accuracy and clarity - and one that provides 90 to 95 percent of the TT's emotion - this is the decision a person has to take. Which one should he opt for? The more important question - which should be our main source of music?
Just as you said I must listen to a TT, I would say listen to a good digital based system. And let us not fool ourselves. We are not the professional audiophile who would be so particular about this note, that tone, the feelings in the singers' heart etc. Even if we are, like Robert Harley, let us start enjoying the music.
Cheers
no offense meant by the following question or intent to convert you to vinyl 
