What's the point if you're not going to get better than CD? Especially with all the problems that go with vinyl.
If you are honestly asking that question, you will never comprehend the answer unless you open yourself to understanding how other people think about it.
First, no one is claiming that some vast majority of consumers are going back to vinyl. Obviously not. It's a niche, though a growing one that has entered mainstream. But of course it's unlikely to ever remotely compete with the convenience and cheaper cost of, for instance, streaming digital.
Please remember, also, that judgements about "sounding better" are subjective. It's not the same as an objective technical claim "measurably more accurate." I think my system sounds "better" than my audiophile friend's system, he thinks the reverse. That's why we each bought different systems.
If someone likes the sound of A over B, it sounds "better" to them.
On my previous less expensive (very old Micro Seiki) turntable I often preferred the sound I heard from vinyl albums to my digital source. Not every time, and I could hear ways in which the digital source was more accurate. But there was some character to the vinyl playback that struck MY EARS as being very organic, spacious, with wonderful texture and presence and warmth. You may be in a position to point out the technical failings of vinyl, but you are in no position to tell me that I can't or don't prefer what I prefer.
And if someone finds he prefers the sound of vinyl over digital, it's entirely rational to continue to get in to vinyl.
And as I said non one NEEDS some expensive turntable to PREFER vinyl to digital. So long as someone's vinyl playback even sounds at all DIFFERENT from their digital playback, they may PREFER it.
And as i said, that has often been the case for people getting in to vinyl even without spending tons of money. Many PREFER the sound, even if it's not as strictly accurate. There are also many who do not prefer the sound of their vinyl rig vs their digital, but simply enjoy both for their differences.
And you fail to factor in the DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE of turntables and vinyl records vs CDs, or streaming. There is a different mind-set and experience that goes along with the physicality of searching for, buying and owning physical LPs, playing them on a turntable etc. Millenials - the biggest demographic behind the vinyl resurrgance, have discovered this. They grew up with digital, but have discovered that playing physical records brings them in to a different mind-set and relationship to listening to music, which is why it is flourishing.
The fact that YOU may not care about these things, or prefer sticking with digital, does not entail anyone else is a sucker for getting in to vinyl, even at the non-audiophile level. If someone is finding the experience energizing and fulfilling, who the hell are you to tell them they are a sucker or shouldn't bother with it?
