Am I nuts or what?

Hey ntscdan...I just listened to that same LP a few months back. I didn't compare it to the CD, but I did notice the early digital effect on the recording. It just doesn't sound right in many ways. I've noticed that same thing with other albums from the 80s where people went digital a little too early...the technology wasn't mature yet. I really like Todd Rundgren's "Nearly Human" album, but the combination of the early all digital recording and his mixing (he has tinitinitis) makes it unlistenable to me.

The original digital studio masters probably sound very good, possibly even wonderful.

When an original high bit rate digital master is converted directly to analog, the LP format renders the data very well. When that same digital master is mixed so far down to meet the 21 year old Redbook standard, a good bit of the data is lost.

The same principal applies to digital photography. Super high bit digital captures (originals) and super high quality conversions from analog (film) are almost equal at preservation of the original quality.

As an example (photographically), a perfect digital transfer from a single frame of a Hasselblad (medium format camera) requires a scan of about 500 MB. Making a single analog frame occupy much of the data space on a CDR.

If a digital format were offered that preserved 100% of the original digital material, analog fans may view digital as equal to analog.

This probably would require a format of greater capacity than the current CD or even the SACD. Perhaps a dual layer DVD.

Unfortunately there is no incentive for record companies to offer that quality when so many of today's listeners are satisfied with MP3.

Comparisons between store purchased vinyl and CD versions of the same album are usually meaningless because there's no way to know if the recording chain for each version was kept constant. Sometimes an artist will have a different mix for each format specifically designed to take into account the pluses and minuses of vinyl versus redbook digital. Other times the same final mix, which can be either digital or analog tape, is used to master both format versions.

With all due respect I think the comparison is very valid.
I agree that I have no way of knowing the "chain" of events in the production of each, but I do know that the CD sounds absolutely awful and isn't worth acquiring at any price. It is just a case of buyer beware. I have noticed that CD's that preserve the original tape hiss found in almost all analog recordings tend to sound OK, but when you get a "remaster" from the 60s and you can't hear any tape hiss it usually means they've tried to "fix" one problem and then created another. For example my garden variety James Taylor "Sweet Baby James" CD on Warner sounds pretty much as good as my first pressing vinyl. All the tape hiss is there on both versions and you really have to split hairs to notice the difference...so it is possible to do a half decent job on CD....for my ears anyhow. When it comes to jazz recordings...early SAVOY, Blue Notes etc, ARGO nothing beats the deep groove vinyl!

No you are not nuts. I just had a similar experience with the James Taylor JT album on my old Linn LP12. Only difference was that when I put on the record I was floored; I never remembered it sounding so good. So I quickly put on the cd and then proceed to run out of the room holding my ears. This happens when I only listen to cds for a couple of months, I begin to think that it sounds pretty good. Then when I put on an Lp, I think to myself how could I listen to something so mechanical sounding. Vinyl has a sense of completeness that cds cannot match. PRaT, is also more realistic.

Having said that, cds have significant advantages over lps such as convenience, availability, and can be listened to in the car. Therefore, cd music is much better than no music.