The vinyl thing can be solved with science.

CD audio is always 44,100 slices per second, each slice somewhere between zero and one, as measured by 65,535 steps. The best CD in the world and the worst CD in the world have this in common. Every CD player ever invented starts with this data specification. Converting that to voltage which drives speakers varies from system to system and if you spend a lot of money you will get better results than if you spend very little, but at a basic level, you're at 16/44 whatever you do.

MP3 isn't. MP3 applies one of a spectrum of algorithms to approximate those slices. In addition to the "voltage-to-sound" step MP3 has in common with CD, there's also the quality of algorithm, the bandwidth of data committed to the approximation, and the quality of algorithm that converts that algorithmic approximation back into slices.

Vinyl has no slices. It has no algorithms. There's a straight line between wiggles-on-platter to wiggles-in-air. Which means if you've got a quality disk on a quality turntable through a quality needle and a quality pre-amp, you will hear a difference compared to a cheap disk on a crap turntable through a worn needle and a shit pre-amp.

People who freak out about how awesome vinyl is tend to be right - they tend to respect their vinyl. And people who dog on vinyl are also right - they focus on the shortcomings of the bottom end. That's the great secret of CDs - they make everything equal. There's no point in blowing a gajillion dollars on a CD player because outside of the DACs they're pretty much the same. It's also the great secret of vinyl - it is a medium that rewards attention to detail.

CDs don't wear out either. It's speculated that the only reason Dark Side of the Moon finally dropped off the Billboard Top 200 is that nobody needed to replace their worn albums anymore.