Is Vinyl Worth It

Well put Stewart, and very nice front ends you have there!

Everytime I play Dean Martin's "Dream With Dean" (original pressing), Jo Stafford's "Ballad of The Blues," or Norman Luboff's "But Beautiful," I know why I love vinyl so much. I'd like to hear the digital setup that will do what these records will do on a high end vinyl setup.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dean-Martin-Dream-With-Dean-LP-Stereo-/381358804911?hash=item58cac18faf

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JO-STAFFORD-Ballad-Of-The-Blues-LP-Columbia-Six-Eye-Stereo-1959-/400962458749?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item5d5b39947d

http://www.ebay.com/itm/But-Beautiful-The-Norman-Luboff-Choir-LP-Vinyl-Album-Record-Columbia-6EYE-/141529734895?hash=item20f3d45eef

I am in the slow process of re-doing my entire system; only the preamp will stay. I have to say re-learning record playing geometry and setup and cleaning and on and on is less painful and way more straight forward than computer audio. As far as playback, the only thing I have heard that give me pause in the opportunity cost of vinyl is the Bricasti DAC.
This is amongst other upper-end digital.

Monumental day in the Mapman household today.  My 14 year old daughter decided she wanted to play records and learned to do it today on the $70 Innovative Technology suitcase turntable she researched and found.   Its a nice little gadget for kids.   Nicely put together and featured for the minimal cost.  Seems to work well.  Even has Bluetooth to play from phones and an aux in.  Reminds me somewhat of the first record player I had as A kid a much larger and heavier Motorola suitcase record player with foldout speakers which was a significant expenditure 50 some odd years ago in my parents house.   She loves music and plays violin.  Maybe a budding audiophile. 😍

Recently I was going through my CD library and stumbled across Dark Side Of The Moon.  Realizing that I had not listened to it in decades, yes decades, I fired up the ol' stereo and sat back for a listen down memory lane. 
How about awful?  All caps - AWFUL!!!
I sauntered over to the rack just to make sure something wasn't amiss. There wasn't. 
Turns out that it was one of the first discs I added to my collection, mirroring my vinyl collection back in the day. 
I then dug out my vinyl version and...hiss. Pop. Click.  Wow - they were still there and I didn't care!  In the same exact spots where I remembered they were!
Subsequently I purchased a remastered disc version and all is well on all fronts. 
Lesson learned?  Many of the early compact disc releases were poorly produced in haste to nourish the beast. 
I likes vinyl.  I likes the compact disc. 
Achieving optimum resolution from either format runs into some considerable financials either way so...spend where you feel most comfortable AND what you will use the most!