Why vinyl

I’m 74 years old and I’ve been a hifi guy since my teens.  I’ve had lots of equipment over the years starting obviously with vinyl.  I still have my 50 year old IMF transmission line speakers, both the TLS50’s and the Professional Monitor MKIII’s. Rebuilt the crossovers over the many years with exact replacement capacitors from the UK for identical sonic results that I recall when new.  My point is the many remastered albums that I stream on Qubuz remixed by Steve Wilson in particular sound SO much better than I ever remember my records sounding.  I mean I had good turntables and cartridges for the day.  Thorens, Dual, Empire. And Stanton, Grado, Shure cartridges.  Must I spend thousands of dollars on vinyl equipment to approach the sound that I currently stream??

My current electronics consist of Marantz SACD 30N and the Model 30 integrated 

Why vinyl?

Let's just stick with that fundamental and what first comes to my mind ....

All else held equal, it's the sound quality. 

What else held equal? E.g., $500 turntable/cart vs. $500 CD player.

Yes, some poor pressings of LPs will have surface noise, and that can be distracting. Is the better LP sonics (vs CD) worth the "cost" of that same LP with background, low-level "krrrrrrrhhh" that you hear between tracks or in quiet passages?  

That noise may go away with another pressing, a better 'table, cart or stylus. And hence you enter another aspect of "Why Vinyl?" ... the hobbyist pursuit of perfection. But we're getting WAY off topic now!

Why vinyl

Most of us have vinyl albums that hold deep emotional meaning when we hold the vinyl, examine liner notes and album covers, the art and the artists. Some bring back memories when we would listen to vinyl with our friends. Some are rare. Some we are very grateful and/or proud of owning. 

CDs….not so much. Need reading glasses or a magnifier.

@hollowman 

"Why vinyl?

Let's just stick with that fundamental and what first comes to my mind ....

All else held equal, it's the sound quality. 

What else held equal? E.g., $500 turntable/cart vs. $500 CD player.

Yes, some poor pressings of LPs will have surface noise, and that can be distracting. Is the better LP sonics (vs CD) worth the "cost" of that same LP with background, low-level "krrrrrrrhhh" that you hear between tracks or in quiet passages?  

That noise may go away with another pressing, a better 'table, cart or stylus. And hence you enter another aspect of "Why Vinyl?" ... the hobbyist pursuit of perfection. But we're getting WAY off topic now!"

Initially you can be appalled by the noise on the only copy of a favorite artist from a crate find but eight times out of ten you can fix it. The beauty of this crude, perfect, mechanical medium is that some very simple cleaning techniques that don't require a large capital outlay for equipment and jugs of cleaning solution or maybe just a better stylus profile on your cartridge can render a quiet background and pristine playback! Not to mention that vinyl is probably the most durable information storage medium that has ever existed except for maybe clay tablets. A case which I think I could argue quite convincingly.