is the sound of vinyl due to the physical process of the turntable?

Buy yourself a turntable and start buying records, you can’t emulate this process using digital, forget about it. Vinyl is about physical media and original pressings.

If you want to emulate analog using digital it is FAKE.

I remember back in the 1970’s you had 45rpm records on the back of cereal boxes and they were not vinyl, however they sounded good why can’t I do that myself?

Not sure what you mean.
There was a STYRENE pressing of the 7 inch vinyl records (aka 45s) up to the late 70s at least or maybe even longer (parallel to the vinyl pressings). Good sound, but wear off quickly than vinyl. Styrene is not flexible and easy to crack, nobody use styrene for pressing anymore.

You can cut an acetate from your digital file, any pressing plant can offer this option, it’s cheap on 7 inch (about $30 both sides). It will never be as good as pressed vinyl from analog source. Digital source will never be as good as the analog source (master tape). Also we lost the art of pressing nowadays, for this reason old vinyl (most of them) from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80s is superior.

When digital processing involved it is no longer analog and it does not make sense at all, because you can simply stay with digital master using some nice digital equipment. Digitally remastered vinyl re-issues are so boring.

Analog is not digital!
The source is master tape, analog mastering and then vinyl pressing.
Think about it this way.

brianlucey

cleeds
Let me clarify, as you are mistaken. (please check my website, this is what I do daily for a living ...

Your claim that "Vinyl is more punchy because it has to be, else the stylus jumps the groove" suggests you really should have an expert examine your turntable system. There's no way that a stylus should jump a quiet groove unless something else is seriously misaligned or defective.

However, a groove with large excursions - such as the cannon shots on  some presssings of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture - can definitely cause mistracking.

I put three thin strips of 3M silver tape on the
cd player spindle, taking care not to affect
the platter.  The middle piece of tape is longer than
the two peices on either side.  The top of the spindle
is curved, so I used a flat edge to gently push the tape 
down onto the spindle.

Better sound, with the tape in place.