When and how did you, if at all, realize vinyl is better?

I agree that you can get respectable sound on the cheap with digital. About a year ago I put digital back into my system to listen to the hundreds of cd's I bought during the cd craze (& yes I started on the cd addiction before the high end addiction). I bought an older pioneer elite player & a Parasound dac. It sounds a whole lot better than I remember digital sounding like. In fact when my mood allows & with the right cd, it sounds awesome. That said, it still doesn't hold a candle to the analog portion of the system. But since I've got 5x that into the analog portion, not to mention a whole lot more work (I made the table myself), it shouldn't.  

In 1974 when I bought my first album... Grand Funk / We're an american band. I've bought over a thousand since and still listen most every day. I did have a few year's off in the mid 80's when cd's saturated the market. Never realized how good vinyl really was until about 1996 when I bought a VPI with a rega arm. Since then I've improved the analog portion of my system 10 fold & now get the musicians in my listening room whenever the record allows. Still have digital & it also sounds awesome, until I put a record on. Then the difference becomes clear. More width, depth, space between instruments, & sense of being there. Can't really say that vinyl is an overall better format than digital, just know it is at my house. That said, the analog portion of my system is about 5 times the cost of the digital portion, so it probably should be... Enjoy what you enjoy.