CDs Vs LPs

I don't know what you have to spend to make vinyl sound good, but I've yet to hear it.

I'm sure this statement is true. I've mentioned some things that you have to do to make vinyl sound good, and they are not price-dependent. Based on your description I don't know how that turntable you mentioned could have worked.

Turntables, like anything else, work because of engineering. Some are well engineered and some are not, just like anything else. Its not a price thing so much as its a thing where its engineered properly or not, just like anything else. I'm repeating myself simply to make the point. Carrying a made up story that a media is somehow deficient when the real reason is that the setup you played was terrible won't help you. 
The same is true of phono preamp sections. Some exacerbate ticks and pops due to poor overload margin, RFI susceptibility and outright circuit instability. This has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with how well the circuit is designed. Designing a phono circuit is more than just getting enough gain and the right EQ- you have to take into account how the inductance of the cartridge behaves in the system, and frankly, many designers don't, so there are both cheap and expensive phono sections that have poor performance. A sign that you have a better phono section is that you get less ticks and pops.

Kosst
Not quite sure why you are so stuck on this but as an,old fart here I can you this.
NOBODY I know would ever differentiate a CD length by tacking on terms like lp or ep. Not saying somebody somewhere does not do so just have never heard it used myself.

Now in the vinyl world it is VERY common to use the terms lp, ep and single to differentiate between the different durations of the vinyl, I hope we all understand those differences!

To my ears a CD is a CD no matter what its duration.

Just my opinion......

In my experience, there is no such thing as a "long play album." This terminology is being confused with the correct "long playing record." An "album" is usually considered the volume of work that is recorded on the record or CD.

After the large diameter, high speed 78rpm records came the 45rpm - a smaller diameter record that was typically one song on each side. Then technology allowed us to play recordings at 33rpm on a record of much larger diameter with good fidelity. Those vinyl discs became known as "Long Playing" records (or "LP’s") because you could get (typically) five or six songs on each side.

Ralph, It is possible that vinyl does not sound good to some people, just as some people will not listen to digital in any form, even Lps that have digital anywhere in their lineage.  We all hear differently.