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

The way I look at it: the ticks and pops (which can be minimized with good phono preamp design, as a poor design will have a lot more ticks and pops) exist in space separate from the music. With digital, the coloration is inherent in the music itself.

Regarding the former: if the preamp is unstable, ticks and pops are exacerbated. This is nothing to do with bandwidth- its possible to design a phono preamp with 100KHz response and still have it be stable.

When I listened to a CD and was astonished by the spectacular sound and fidelity, then put a LP on and was astonished by the sound of a performance.

When CD was introduced;My friends and I didn't buy into it. We had too many LPs. A few yrs later, (3-4) , a couple of the guys each bought a player and their first CDs. Their take on it was that there were No tics and pops, better bass, better cymbals (?), and Long playing time.
 I didn't buy into it. I bought the LP12 that I still use. It blew me away! Records sounded better than ever. That was the start of my high end journey.

I knew vinyl was better when I saw this:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/love-the-world-s-first-intelligent-turntable-music-design--2#/

... Yeah, definitely gonna toss my VPI turntable in the garbage when  the Love comes out. can't wait!