I started collecting vinyl in the 60’s. In the early 80’s I bought a Teac reel-to-reel, dbx 224 noise reduction unit, and dbx 3bx dynamic range expander. If you’ve never heard a good reel-to-reel recording, you are missing a real treat. My recorded vinyl sounded better than the original album, to me. Back then, I had about 10 cases of reels.
In the 80’s, I moved to CDs because they were supposed to better. My moderate collection of 1,200 vinyl albums went pretty much unplayed for a very long time. Between my CDs and reels, I had all the music I needed for a long time.
Recently, I purchased a Technics SL-1200G w/ Ortofon Black cartridge and a Zenith MKII CD ripper/streamer. I often play the same album on my turntable and a ripped CD on the Zenith, and switch back and forth between them to compare the music. Of course the Zenith has a little more dynamic range, the sound is clear and very musical, but I still prefer vinyl over CDs (ripped or not). Vinyl sounds more natural to me, and aside from an occasional pop or click, the vast majority of my albums are in mint or near mint condition - because I rarely played them once they were recorded. The SQ with the 1200G is really, really good.
In a dealer’s showroom, I heard a $25K turntable with $10K tonearm and $7K cartridge (all toll about a $250K system) that sounded better than ANYTHING I’ve ever heard before. When its all said and done, I’m thinking "better" in this case depends on the equipment used, and to a large degree is a personal preference.
