Here's a question for the masses. What do we think about Al frames these days? I keep trying to overlook them because of the harsh ride, but I do realize that I base my opinion on a Cannonade from the 80's and an early 90's Klein. One would think that they can ride better now....
OK. I'll bite! Those old Cannondales and Kleins were brutal. Even more brutal, were the "contact point" components of that era. It all added up to pain(toughness?) ..no, pain. Flash forward to the 2005-ish time period where Al was still "competing" with carbon. The CAAD8 was insanely smooth. The front triangle was torsionally well-composed, and those "premium" forks that came stock on the frames are still my favorite. The defining characteristic of these frames was the obscenely compliant rear triangle, which was also shared with the SystemSix. Too soft for some maybe, but the bike was absolutely silent rolling. This is my long way of saying "yes", modern aluminum can be as good, and in some cases better than CF. Especially low-end CF. In my opinion you generally give up two thing when choosing aluminum:
1. Life span. Aluminum gets softer with milage, scandium even more so.
2. Sound. We perceive "ride quality" with our ears. The vertical compliance variations between frames of varying materials but identical geometry is not perceivable by a human. When a bike, or car are loud, we interpret this as poor ride quality. Most carbon frames are going to make different, "smoother sounds".
Flash forward to 2020. I don't know if "modern" aluminum is awesome or not. But, to answer your question, it certainly can be good. If I'm choosing between CF and cheap wheels/tires, or Al and nice wheels/tires, I'm going Al.