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

This is a little like debating over whether the weather is nicer in Arizona or San Diego.  Depends on what you prefer and what the weather was like when you were there.  

That said, I do love the sound of vinyl.  I find that the best go-to LPs please/impress more consistently than the vast majority of my 2-channel digital recordings.  Now, some of the digital 5.1 stuff is a different experience, albeit the availability of source material is limited.  

But I think the quality of digital can be a lot closer to analog than many people have experienced here.  It's best to take the data off the spinning disk and play through an appropriately optimized computer or quasi-computer system.  This optimization can be very intense trial and error, and involves a ton of both hardware and software variables.  

So while many listen to digital through very high end gear, you can do a lot better by being an under the hood PC guy.  Then you have to get compulsive about finding the best digital source material - re-buying CDs with better mastering and sometimes even remixing from what was available in the 80s and 90s, and of course hunting down genuine and legitimate hi res versions that are not just upsampled or poorly mastered.  

Add the effort and you will be rewarded with digital.  It's there.  Not saying that the sound alone is superior, but you can get to the point where which is better is on a recording by recording basis rather than format vs. format.  

Then if you add the convenience factor, digital has a legitimate reason to be in your audio lives, without sacrificing quality for the most part.  

  I ditched my vinyl a long ago in favor of CDs. I don’t miss the vinyl, though I can relate to the elegance of an all analog path. After all, all speakers are analog, as they must be, since our ears are.  Having said that introducing a cartridge adds a transducer to the mix.  People spend A LOT of money trying eliminate the coloration inherent.  But just like speakers, there is not a perfect solution.

Digital is different.  It can be as accurate as the technology of the DACs (both at the recording -- analog to digital and the playing digital to analog) will allow.  Both sides are bound to improve and become less expensive (for the same level) over time.  While there is inherent noise associated with vinyl there is no inherent noise to digital.   (Do any of you guys still use film cameras?  I thought so.  ;)  )

As for sound:  with enough money you can make vinyl nearly noiseless (as long as your records are new) and there is a difference in sound.  If you like that difference enough to forgo a Corvette, enjoy!!

As I said I ditched my records a long time ago. I still have my 1,000 or so CDs, but I don’t listen to them anymore. Instead I listen to FLAC files (I subscribe to TIDAL) for the following reasons:

1). Economic: I get access to all of my CD’s (or near enough as makes no matter) plus anything else I want to try on for size. The $20/month I pay to tidal is nothing. There was a time I spent 20 times that amount or more on CDs.

In addition, I can try out new music without spending additional $.  If I don't like it, I just don't add it to my favorites.

Plus I don’t need to spend a lot of money on playback devices. Vinyl enthusiasts spend thousands on turntables and cartridges. I see record cleaners costing more than $1,000!!!

2) Convenience (guilty as charged):  Tidal stores my music for me (though I do store my favorite albums on my phone so I can listen to them when I don’t have a high speed internet connection)

3) Longevity: My FLAC files will never wear out, get scratched, or otherwise degrade. You can’t even say that for CD’s though they are less susceptible to wear and somewhat more forgiving of minor damage than vinyl.

4) Portability. I can take all my music with me wherever I go. If I don’t have an acceptable setup available for playing through loudspeakers, I can connect my Oppo headphones to my phone (an LG V20 which sports a decent DAC).

 I suppose since I'm the OP that I should chime in. 

Vinyl did not always sound clearly better to me UNTIL I started moving up the chain with a better amp, pre-amp and cartridge.  And, the number one thing that opened the door to vinyl crushing digital was a great phono preamplifier.  I bought a Manley Chinook and I immediately noticed a holographic image that digital just couldn't deliver.  

Just about a year ago, I could A/B vinyl v. digital and I was a little bit apprehensive in setting up the audition because I wanted vinyl to win.  Well, now that I have a fairly decent cartridge (Dynavector 20xh/Ortofon 2M Black), a real phono preamplifier (Manley Chinook), and a decent integrated (Primaluna Dialogue Premium HP), I just KNOW that switching the selector over to digital on the integrated is going to leave me wanting more.  

I've had a turntable since I was a kid in the late 70s and was semi-serious as early as 1996 (I bought my first Rega then as a junior in college).  But while I always liked things about vinyl I didn't see it as necessarily superior.  I'm super happy to say that now I do see vinyl as better.  My bank account can attest to that.   All I want to do is spin black discs, and my Tidal account and DAC don't get weekly use.  

The holography, texture, realism, and--well--lack of flat, smeary, boringness to the sound make vinyl a clear winner.  I WISH vinyl wasn't better because I'd save money on music, record cleaning, cartridges, etc.  The maintenance and tinkering are kind of fun though.  

I'll say this.  I'd move from tube back to solid state amplification (both for main amp and phono) before I'd move from vinyl to digital.  

I like digital in my rig and it generally sounds fine (perhaps due to a good DAC and the tubes in my amp), but LPs can sound sort of amazing for all the reasons listed above and I have lots of them so I play the damn things. Somebody wrote a great thing about how digital recordings on vinyl can sound better than the CD version…a Brit HiFI mag, and I wish I child find the article…couple of years ago…made sense actually as somehow the LP is always analog…or something. I think it's true.