It's not going to be easy to directly compare apples to apples. But for US$400 I bought a Teac 22-4 and a Teac 5 board. Counting or not counting the Teac 5 (which cost me US$150) I picked up a Delta 66 (the card out of a bin with a bunch of soundblasters, it was the only one that said ICE1712 on the chipset.....) and a decent CPU from FreeGeek for about $88, and then bought the breakout box direct from M-Audio for another $50. I think the Delta 66 new would have been on the order of $100 or so. I didn't buy any software, opting to use 1.3 beta version of 64Studio, which is an all in one Linux solution.
The Teac 5 (an old board admittedly) is a nice front end to a four track like the Delta 66, so directly comparing these two, the digital rig was $100 cheaper. But, I chose to skip Windows altogether. Add in teh cost of software and you're at or above the 22-4 cost. If I remove the Teac 5 (not necessary if I'm going to mix in the box) I'd need a mic preamp and possibly a DI for the Delta 66. One of those ART starved plate tube thingy's will do both for around $75 or so.
So:
Teac 22-4 $250
Teac 5 $150
Blank tape $30 (basing on the now out of stock price for a reel of 457)
$430
Delta 66 $58
CPU $80
Monitor $0 (freebie from office mate)
Preamp $75
For me the software cost was the price of a blank cd-rom and amortized my bandwidth cost for download. But that involved a choice to use Linux over Windows. Could probably figure another $100 or so for software depending on the Windows version. which puts the comparable digital rig at $313.
I suppose I need to add the cost of somethin glike an Alesis microverb ($30) to the analog rig. So in this scenario the Analog setup is about $130 more overall, and I'm assuming I'm using only plugins on the digital rig, and the preamps on the Teac 5 for the analog. I'm not including the cost of cables, as both the Delta and the 22-4 are 4 in 4 out, and I had a bunch of CRT monitors handed down to me.
Now OTOH, you can get some sweet deals on yesterday's digital gear. I bought an ISIS MAxi Studio (16 bit with 8 in 4 out breakout box and a decent on board midi synth) for a whopping $5 off ebay, and I think I bought another one of those earlier for about $20 that was NIB...
After all my rambling, I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. I agree an out of the box digital solution can be had much much cheaper than analog. However, I think the cost of digital can be understated at times, depending on your goals.
While I get what you're saying here, I don't think those two rigs would be "comparable," feature-wise.
With your analog rig, you had one processor (the Microverb). And you had 4 tracks.
With the digital rig, you'd have tons of tracks (I won't say unlimited because it's however many your CPU can handle---though you can freeze or render tracks to work around that), access to tons of freeware perfectly decent-sounding plug-ins (definitely on the level of the Microverb or better IMO), and you could use several of them (depending on the plug and your CPU specs) at once.
You'd also have unlimited compression plugs (again, depending on your specs, but my CPU easily handles many at once) and parametric EQs at your disposal, whereas you don't have any in your analog rig. I don't know how good of a deal you can find, but my 4 channels of analog compression cost me about $140, and that's including a DBX 166 at $35, which was the steal of the century, and the cheapest hardware parametric I've seen is about $60 for a three-channel (I think).
And again, there's the cost of tape for the 22-4 and/or the maintenance/adjustment/tools, depending on if you want to do it yourself.
Like I said, I'm all about viva la analog, but there's just comparison cost-wise when starting from scratch with regards to comparable features. The whole plug-in world has just made that argument obsolete, IMHO.
Of course, as you said, this is assuming you want to mix ITB. And yes, that's what I'm assuming, because I'm pretty sure that's what the vast majority of beginning recordists working with a CPU and DAW do these days. Eventually, they may get a mixer and start working that way, but ... a CPU, audio interface, Reaper, maybe a pre (and obviously mics and instruments and monitors, which don't count because they're necessary in both worlds), and you're good to go with a system that can produce some excellent results in the right hands (notwithstanding the A vs. D sound debate).
To get a comparable system in R2R land, you need, at minimum:
R2R
Tape
Mixer (with built-in pres)
effects processor
compressor (2 channels at least)
Parametric EQ (not that you necessarily need it, but to make it somewhat comparable to the digital rig)
Rack space
Cables
And, of course, this is assuming you already have a mixdown deck! We hadn't even really talked about that.
So, I just don't think anyone can logically argue that,
especially if you buy the CPU used (like and did), the two systems are anywhere close in price. And, to be honest, this analog system is really limited compared to the features of the digital rig (way more tracks, way more effects, way more dynamics/EQ, etc.).
Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, and I actually enjoy working with those limitations, which is another reason I like working with analog: it's finite, so you can only spend so much time experimenting before you need to make a decision about something.
But I personally think it does someone an injustice to lead them to believe that startup analog and digital rigs are comparable price-wise. I think if someone goes into analog thinking that, they're likely to be very disappointed and possibly give up. Some things need to be accepted: in the home studio realm, digital is just cheaper than analog, period.
But there are many other reasons to still use analog of course, and that's why I still do (and I assume why most of y'all do as well). I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they would use digital, but it's too expensive. I have known several people say that about analog though.
) and the TCO for digital understated.