Siliab: thanks for confirming my thoughts.. my other friends laughed at that rating.. I had to buy the white stripes vinyl (oh yeah and both records were warped brand new ...retailers won't take them back either..) because the CD is so compressed also....
the funny thing is I'm starting to explore vinyl because of how bad the new CD's are over produced.. it's so odd that the they use a different master to make the vinyl.
It's frustrating as I don't want to spend 5-10k in analog accesories (table,arm, cart, cleaners, isolation,preamps, etc... cleaners, cart aligners..) I have heard these setups and I have heard bargain beaters but and you have to go big. I don't care what people say about how a Rega P3 can beat digital.. sorry you just have bad digital! My old Technics SL1210 DD kicked the P3, but unfortunately still not enough (not looking for KAB upgrades as I'm watching my friend implement those).