When and how did you, if at all, realize vinyl is better?

Quick note to dave_b (and no offense here) - 

If you can't understand dragging a rock across bumpy plastic then I would doubt you could appreciate a bow being dragged across the string of a cello.

Seriously - that's what's one of the greatest things about the reproduction of vinyl reproduction is that it works exactly the same way - grooves, friction, vibration between needle and tonearm, resonance = music.

The relationship between record+tonearm+vibration+resonance=music is almost exactly the same as a musical instrument.  

Maybe imperfect BUT

0/1's+laser+software is NOT a musical instrument.

Not arguing which is 'better' but I will say 100% that this is a true statement.  Only difference between a vinyl setup and playing a cello or other analog instrument (reeds, strings, bows, picks, sticks, heads, bells, mallets, vocal chords, mouthpieces, etc.) is amplification.

Stream away - I do

:) 

When I dropped for me what was big bucks on a rig. Went with balanced and full range drivers and the detail began to really come through. If I could have gotten CD to sound better I would have been able to sell off the expensive vinyl setup and pocket a huge chunk of change. But I wanted an honest appraisal so just kept on until I was satisfied that the evaluation was complete, at least in my mind. 
Listener fatigue would set in with CDs to a much greater extent than vinyl. You know, there's no questioning listener fatigue. When it sets in you quit listening. It's not nuances, fine discrepancies or subtle differences. It's cut the rig off and go to bed. With vinyl I stay up too late.

Last rig I had was a Micro Seiki BL-51 wt Dynavector Rubycartridge!  I did appreciate it very much.  Of course vinyl can sound really good, but the artifacts distract me from suspending belief that I am experiencing the event as it originally sounded.  What I have now does it for me...has the positive attributes of vinyl without the drawbacks.

I don't know if its true.   I have CD's and the same vinyl...sometimes CD's are better, sometimes the vinyl is better.  (shoulder shrug)

I have one little bit of experience that is possibly relevant.
A [long] while back I was lucky enough to hear an ORIGINAL Charley Patton 78rpm (I didn't own it of course) and the sound of that pretty beat-up bit of shellac (through a modest system) was singularly spectacular, seriously good. It was much more immediate than any vinyl or CD version I have heard since.
The deck playing this wonderful disc was a modified Garrard (I think) with a Decca (I think), Technics amp - forgot speakers.
I doubt my current [quite fancy, Lyra Etna-lead] set-up could match the sheer presence of the Great Man played on the original.
It was like he was right there in the room.
Maybe this was just an outlier, specific to pre-war Delta blues? But I know others who have had the same experience (John Peel R.I.P. had an original Skip James 78 and played this with the LP version afterwards, even on the radio the difference was stark ... the 78 blew away the LP, and Peel could not stop stating this either on air).
Why would this would be? This is the only time I would submit that another medium was superior to vinyl, but in this case it was. Weird.