melm,
You are correct, I've never owned or used a high quality vinyl setup in my system, just a mediocre vinyl setup that I used during my college years. I switched to a CD setup fairly soon after graduating in 1980.
Side note a bit off topic: I also used a Super-Beta vcr in my A/V system during the early 80's and recall using it to create custom playlist tapes by recording my favorite CD tracks on Beta tapes recorded at the Super-Beta recorder's highest speed. These audio recordings made on Beta video tapes using the Super-Beta machine's highest recording speed not only sounded superior in my opinion to the original CD but also had a lower noise level and higher recording capacity than the typical audio cassettes were capable of at the time.
While I've never used a high quality TT setup in my system, I have been and am familiar with the very high sound quality a good TT setup is capable of via listening to hi-end TT based systems of friends and retailers.
However, my opinion is that high resolution direct to digital recordings, even played back on my admittedly mediocre system, sound superior to me to vinyl recordings played back on significantly better systems.
I perceive direct to digital recordings as presenting a more realistic sound stage illusion in general that gives me a greater impression that I'm actually 'in the room'. I attribute this increased realism being due to hi-res digital's ultra quiet background combined with its fine detail levels and exceptional dynamic range ability.
To be fair though, I've never been able to compare the same musical content recorded to vinyl to one recorded direct to digital. and these are just my overall impressions.
But, as we've all stated before in various ways, which format is 'best' is much less important than which one you enjoy listening to the most.
Tim
