Without knowing the specifics of which lp's you used - keep in mind that many of the so-called 180 gram "audiophile" remasters are nothing of the sort. Many (if not most) have been digitized, slightly re-EQ'ed, and then pressed into mediocre vinyl with little skill evident in the cutting process. Then they sell it for more than you'd have to pay for a mint original pressing in many cases!
Also, some of the newer LP's you mentioned were ORIGINALLY digitally recorded and/or mastered. REM Document is DDD I believe, and U2 War is ADD - so those are not valid test subjects. Digital cut into vinyl is just degraded digital - it's a miracle the vinyl didn't sound slightly worse.
And certainly too, there are some very well done CD reissues - and I'm sure that DSOTM is one of them. But I'd suggest that if you plan on having eventually having a deep and wide music collection with many titles and genres - not just "audiophile picks", CD alone won't cut it.
Also, and this is truly not a value judgement - the type of music you demo'ed with seems more oriented to dynamics, slam, intensity - i.e. rockin' - which CD does fairly well. If you also listen to classical and jazz, I would argue that you need to give vinyl a further try as to it's ability to reproduce subtlety and nuance - such as comparing an early Rudy Van Gelder mastered Blue Note lp with a CD reissue. Or a Starker Solo Cello on a Living Presence RFR-1 pressing compared to it's CD counterpart.
Vinyl does have it's drawbacks, but for those of us who are interested in extensive collections of pre-1980's music, the original vinyl is very often much better than a CD reissue (if it even exists) - if only because so many CD's are poorly mastered or produced from degraded copies of master tapes.
Also, some of the newer LP's you mentioned were ORIGINALLY digitally recorded and/or mastered. REM Document is DDD I believe, and U2 War is ADD - so those are not valid test subjects. Digital cut into vinyl is just degraded digital - it's a miracle the vinyl didn't sound slightly worse.
And certainly too, there are some very well done CD reissues - and I'm sure that DSOTM is one of them. But I'd suggest that if you plan on having eventually having a deep and wide music collection with many titles and genres - not just "audiophile picks", CD alone won't cut it.
Also, and this is truly not a value judgement - the type of music you demo'ed with seems more oriented to dynamics, slam, intensity - i.e. rockin' - which CD does fairly well. If you also listen to classical and jazz, I would argue that you need to give vinyl a further try as to it's ability to reproduce subtlety and nuance - such as comparing an early Rudy Van Gelder mastered Blue Note lp with a CD reissue. Or a Starker Solo Cello on a Living Presence RFR-1 pressing compared to it's CD counterpart.
Vinyl does have it's drawbacks, but for those of us who are interested in extensive collections of pre-1980's music, the original vinyl is very often much better than a CD reissue (if it even exists) - if only because so many CD's are poorly mastered or produced from degraded copies of master tapes.