[justy]

I was first convinced of the quality of the vinyl experience when I popped a maxi-single by the Cure that had a live version of "Faith" on my parents' decent turntable. Sounded like they were in the room.

The main issue with CDs is basically that, by "sampling" the audio waveform, they're cutting it up into chunks, then recalculating the waveform based on that approximation. 16 bit chunks, sampled 44,100 times a second allows a reproduction of a full-frequency waveform. There's more headroom on a CD than on vinyl, but I do think that vinyl's "completeness" (no slicing and dicing of waveforms here: you can actually see the waveform on vinyl!) contributes to its quality. That said:

Late 80s/early 90s vinyl is crap: cheap materials (recycled PVC, among other things), cramming way too much stuff (45 minutes!) onto two sides, which reduces the impact of bass sounds, not to say the actual loudness of the release because you can't let the wave take up too much space. So choose wisely. Besides, given the fact that most recent releases go through some digital format before mastering anyway, the point is moot for modern recordings.