Will a $700 turntable outperform a CD player?

I have another perspective on this.  I read here how transcendent the sound of vinyl can be — who doesn’t want to experience that?  But I had low expectations for my old vinyl, still recalling all the crackles and pops.  I thus didn’t want to invest much money until I knew if I’d even like it.  So, I paid $280 for a Denon DP-300f, which came with an inexpensive Denon cartridge but also included the Ortofon 2M Red cart as a free upgrade.  I bought a low tech but effective Spin Clean manual record washer and made my own cleaning solution from recipes on-line.  

The worst part was cleaning each record by hand, and then listening to them.  But it was “shelter-at-home” time with this COVID-19 business, so what else was I going to do?   I ended up cleaning most of the 328 records at least twice, and some a third time. So I easily did 700 cleanings by hand over the past 2 months.  I found that my results were better if I did more vigorous cleaning than the Spin Clean called for.   But I am done.

Am I glad I went into vinyl as an option (still looking to enjoy music on CD’s and streaming)?  Yes, I am.  There is a hands-on satisfaction for me with vinyl, even the cleaning.  And so far I haven’t spent a dime on new records — I inherited my family’s collections and was otherwise given albums for free.  Out of all those records, only 6 were unusable.  If I had to start from scratch on the records (no pun intended), I might not bother. Going cheap has worked for me, but I don’t play music at loud volume, as I like to relax while listening.  Maybe if I was trying to replicate the sound levels of a rock concert, I might feel differently. 

(My latest venture has been to convert my records to digital files, to eventually put onto my Bluesound Vault 2i.  A nice fellow here helped direct me to the Focusrite Scarlett 4i4, which can convert the music on records to 24/96 digital, or even higher.  I will be able to access my vinyl recordings as easily as I do CD’s, but with even greater resolution.  That is the plan anyway.  And it gives me something to amuse myself with).

will be able to access my vinyl recordings as easily as I do CD’s, but with even greater resolution . You can't get greater resolution when transforming your vinyl collection to digital . You will get what is already on the vinyl , period , thats it . 

Having said that depending on digital playback equipment you might even get a inferior sound , more brightness , colapse soundstage and things of that nature . 

On the question of which is better , analog or digital it depends on the equipment and recording . There are one box solutions for digital that sound great even on redbook cds and vinyl setups that sound fantastic . 

There is one thing for analog playback that I consider extremely important to get the best possible sound that many omit when they are commenting on vinyl playback and that is the quality of the phono circuit or Riaa conversion circuit 
 

No matter how good your turntable or cartridge is if your phonostage is not up to the task you will never be able to reach your analog setups full potential . 

Experiment and hear the differences between two phonostages and you will be surprise at the profound differences in playback between them . 

I’m retired, I have CDs. Are you talking about me?

@tooblue there is a difference between younger and older generation of people, strangely but VINYL format is widely popular between young people while CD (and CD players) are not at all (replaced by streaming and files long time ago). This is why i think that CD is for retired people (aka older generation). I also think that majority of audiogon posters belog to the older generation.

@b_limo I remember when CD became popular here, it was in the 90’s and at that time i had portable CD player, hi-fi Turntable and Cassette Deck. The CD sound was clean, but Vinyl was much more dynamic and more impressive even in my mid-fi system with average cartridge. In 95 I bought my first Technics SL1210mkII, sold all the CDs for vinyl, been using only vinyl and cassettes. Only vinyl for over 20 years now (with dramatically improved system).

It won’t if the other guy knows what he’s doing. If both systems are Untweaked, straight outta the box in an untreated room, who cares? They are both going to suck, relatively speaking of course. Everything is relative to something else. There is also the sticky question of what your preferences are regarding sound quality.

The first question I would ask is how many record albums vs CD's do you have? Used CD's are a lot easier to come by right now, but personally, I prefer the ritual AND the sound of playing a CD. If you are looking for a brand new, easy to set up turntable under $700, I would recommend the Rega Planar 2 ($675 everywhere - comes with a really basic cartridge) or the Pro-Ject 1Xpression Carbon Classic ($689 at The Music Room (tmraudio.com) - comes with an Ortofon 2M Silver cartridge). Good luck!