LP's... Do they sound better now than 30 yrs ago?

They made two fatal mistakes. The first was going to solid state for mastering. The second was thinking that aggressive dynamic range compression was a good idea. For those reasons I'm out.

30 - 40 years I had a B&O table.  Enjoyed every minute of it.  Also old records still great on my much improved vinyl setup of today.

Truth is...It’ll never be as good as it was. Your equipment might be better but your ears are 30-40 years older. Sorry : (

Well, it's not too bad. More reason to get the best equipment possible. May be unable to fully compensate but hopefully enough.

Having bought a couple of thousand lp's over the last 5 years, vintage, new, a few audiophile releases too. For a general new vinyl re-release, non-audiophile 1 in 3 has a problem, usually warped, pre-scratched at the factory, surface inclusions etc, like a previous poster mentioned, some of the US plants are problematic, no QC.
(Best to buy these through Amazon, for ease of return/replacement).
 
I even try to buy the occasional expensive Audiophile release through Amazon if I can, for the same reason, the Doors 45rpm Analogue Productions series spring to mind, as i live far from the US, (returning a damaged Lp to Acoustic Sounds was not cheap).

For vintage vinyl, Discogs is a better bet than ebay  for general condition, but for me Germany is the country to buy from, cheap overseas postage and usually premium condition. On the other hand you get buyer protection on ebay which is good.