When CDs first came onto the market in 1982 .......

Sting, “The Dream of The Blue Turtles” was my first CD. Still own the CD but both the Yamaha CDX1 and Technics SLD1 are long gone. The Yamaha died, the Technics I gave to a friend and I bet still playing today. My system back then was a college system that was mediocre at best so I couldn’t tell the difference but I knew CD’s were here to stay. Progressed to better CDP’s over the years and wasn’t until a few years ago I bought a new table. Both the table and CDP sit as most my listening is streaming. 
 

What I do recall was at our house parties in college, CD’s we’re definitely more convenient. Hands down, more convenient.

I remember Dire Straits CDs sounded good. The rest, not so much.  Also remember CDs were more expensive than I liked.

My father had a nice mid fi system from Lafayette(rumored to made my luxman) in college and grad school a techniqs receiver and turntable.  The tt was plastic, p mount direct drive and was no where near the Pickering on dads.  Early cd was a hitachi from circuit city and wqs disappointingly bright and sterile.  First job led to first high end system. Nakamichi cdp stasis amp and pre amp.  Better but still not musical.  On a chance experience in a dimly lit reference room I heard the sound I craved, a spectral two box system at over 10k.  The salesperson  was amused when I said that is the first digital I can listen to.  It was a rega p3 and dynavector 10x 4  total 800 dollars. 

Sony’s CD-1 was the first CD player on the market...not much larger than the cd itself...I believe it was $300 .....used it for a few years and then upgraded when the market got flooded with cd players from every brand imaginable.....gave it to my nephew a few years later...Wonder if it’s worth anything today. CD’s had more slam than vinyl then and that extra bass really impressed alot of people. Cartridges today are so refined and inproved over the carts of the 70’s-80’s, that they are superior in their Musicality to many of today’s cd players.

It is a pity that it were so easy to compress digital audio files (loudness war) in a computer and then supply that to the CD pressing plants.

So most of the source material were therefore having lower dynamic range on the CD then on the LP.

That killed the superior CD and other formats that come along.

The LP is a physical copy protection when it is so bad so we can not get back what went in no matter it is coming from ANY TT and disregarding price no object. We will and can not get exactly the same signal what went to the cutting head on the lathe.

In computer science we can call LP for a lossy format (as MP3 were a example of a lossy format) and therefore a good copy protection. Record labels can and will supply source material to the LP pressing plants that is not as heavy compressed when nobody can do a one to one copy of a LP (that’s why there is in "Dynamic range DB" are LP releases that has a greater dynamic range than the digital counterparts it shows us that the record labels have NOT supplied the same source material).

Additional each step in the LP production process can only loose fidelity. Some few examples:

• Cutting head can not increase fidelity
• Plating of a father can not increase fidelity
• Plating of a moto can not increase fidelity
• Plating of a son (stamper) can not increase fidelity
• Vinyl formula can not increase fidelity
• Eccentricity (center hole not 100% center of the Grove) can not increase fidelity
• Wear of stampers first pressing is not the same as the last pressing from the same stamper. The same goes for later sons from the same mother is not the same as the first son. And of course the same goes for from father to the first and last mother.. can not increase fidelity just more or less bad.
• Then we have ALL the issues with playback when there is NOT any in the whole world of TT frontend that sounds the same when there is no defined reference playback. But that is logical when the final LP record is so far from what actually went into the cutting head. So it makes not more of a sense that the end user will anyway tweak the sound to their subjective liking. And that is probably a strength of the format. But has nothing to do with HiFi in short.

But I love my LP playback system when the same album will not sound exactly the same for each playback. And it is relieving experience in this digital world there computers can play back tracks over and over again until we get mad of it’s precision when it time after time always sounds exactly the same and without any variation whatsoever.

But it is of course a strength also depending on what someone wants to achieve.