Will a $700 turntable outperform a CD player?

If you want to play a vinyl record it will always be better on a turntable than the awful noise it would make trying to cram it into the CD player.

relaks

... if you are going to collect recent shiny issues to play on your new TT, just forget about outperforming a good digital source. Simply because this "analogue" record is a conversion of a digital studio recording ...

It isn't that simple. That's because many commercial CDs and digital files have been substantially compressed as part of the Loudness Wars, while an LP may be given kinder treatment and have a wider dynamic range. Digital often doesn't take advantage of its theoretical technical advantages.

... a TT is a major money pit, buying it is just a beginning, and for most the very nature of a TT will lead to tinkering and upgrades ...

Not necessarily. If you buy a good high-end turntable and pickup arm, future upgrades won't be required or even necessarily advantageous. (Although you will have to replace your stylus or phono cartridge every so often.)

I had several DACs in the last 20 years - Trivista, Reimyo, Naim and some other names I don’t even remember. Now I have Innuos ZEN mk3 + Aqua La Voce S3 as my main source ...

Hmmm, you make digital sound like a money pit.

Yes, an inexpensive, well built turntable can outperform many CD players (especially the 40 or 50 I tried from it's inception to 2005).  I have found that modern CD players, and; in particular, recent DACs with separate transports with well mastered CDs will sound superior to an inexpensive turntable.  My reference is a souped up VPI TNT VI/modified SME IV/Benz Ruby3 versus an EAR Acute and COS Engineering D2 DAC.  Now I have leveled the playing field and I get tremendous pleasure from my best records and best CDs.  My ratio of great CDs versus great LPs is is higher.  I have many less than spectacular LPs in my 25,000 collection whereas, especially jazz and classical, I have so many finely remastered CDs.  If I were a analog novice, a good old Technics would have been better than my initial setups of a Dual 1209, an Empire,  a Rotel then a Connisseur table with an Audiocraft arm.  To really get into high quality analog, I purchased a VPI 19 (upgraded to a -4) with a moded SME IV arm with a Dynavector Ruby.  That killed CDs in the 1980s and 1990s.  By 2005, my current system made CD listening as good as LP.  

It isn't that simple. That's because many commercial CDs and digital files have been substantially compressed as part of the Loudness Wars, while an LP may be given kinder treatment and have a wider dynamic range. Digital often doesn't take advantage of its theoretical technical advantages.

 Agree, but CDs choice is huge. And modern DACs play DSD... 

If you buy a good high-end turntable and pickup arm, future upgrades won't be required or even necessarily advantageous. (Although you will have to replace your stylus or phono cartridge every so often.)

Yes, but "hi-end" is a key word here. 

Hmmm, you make digital sound like a money pit.

:-))  Only if you buy new and don't know what you are doing.

Sometimes.