Who are using vinyl as main source?

[PhilP]

My wife has a Steinway model B piano and its lowest note iirc is 31Hz, so a full octave different to the monster Bosendorfer! I wonder how big it is, the model B has a ~6 foot soundboard.

The thing with record players is that one can tune to taste!
Non-isolated turntables pick up more ambient vibration, which is heard as more bass in the lower registers and more ambience in the mid frequencies.
The lower SNR od LPs means music related noise is added which gives the impression of more spacious stereo.
Most pickup arms vibrate the cartridge body at middle frequencies adding a bit of reverb.
Even in really high end cartridges there is a big variation in the way the top octave is handled. Something like the £8k Techdas rolls off rapidly at 10kHz whereas at the other extreme the Rega Apheta has a big peak in the top octave, which can be altered a bit by loading but not eliminated. Sometimes this sort of characteristic is the technical by-product of a particular design strategy considered important by the designer, sometimes just a matter of taste in listening tests (which are risky in LP systems IME as so many things have an influence).
All pickup cartridges I know of add overtones to the music.
Now, again IME, the difference between digital kit is very much smaller than these, which means that with digital you are stuck with a sound fairly close to that chosen by the recording engineer (which often seems to be a bad thing ).
I know what you mean about harsh sounding digital kit. I have been surprised, in my system in the past, by some well regarded CD players being disappointing.
OTOH the Devialet seems completely transparent to me. I haven't had a disappointment now in 4ish years.

According to the Bosendorfer web-site the Imperial measures 9' 6" x 5' 9" and weighs well over half a ton. So a well-reinforced floor is required.

A frind of mine has a Naim CD555 which is by far the best CD player I've heard. Detailed but very natural and enjoyable to listen to.

I love the fact that turntables can be 'tuned' in the way you describe. I remember working out resonant frequencies etc when I first had an SME arm on a Thorens TD 160. Tuning digital kit is certainly a lot more tricky. For example, I was very surprised to find that power cables can make a significant difference to the sound of the Devialet. My local dealer suggested that I should try one and I really didn't expect to hear anything different from the stock cable but there was definitely a more airy and apparently detailed top end and tighter base. I was really surprised. I've been trying to understand how power cables can possibly sound different but there seems to be very little serious research in this area. it's frustrating to wade through the marketing b******t on most manufacturers' web-sites and there seems to be little of substance to be found there. Perhaps its just down to the effectiveness of the shielding and the contacts?