The analog to digital transition is not significant at
all, really.
Once the audio is in those two RCA connectors or phono plugs, it does
not really matter if it is coming or going to digital or analog
source.
Absolutely false.
The reason early CDs sounded so bad was they often started with the
Master mixdown tapes from the LP, which had a lot of bad juju done
to them due to the limitations of the vinyl medium.
That's why so much work has been put into remastering from original
multitracks, when possible.
The problem is people EXPECT the music to sound like what they heard
on vinyl. Getting the remix to sound 'right' is tough to do.
Pretty much all of
this is mainstream, anyway, so the record companies do the
conversions.
This won't happen, as people have said, for stuff out of the mainstream.
When it's done, it is often from vinyl, since the original tapes have
been lost.
.. getting this back to preservation, at least we work (mostly) with
digital saturation recording.