Would I be wasting my money to get a turntable?

@mulveling is spot on. 

1. the lp collector's price advantage over digital long ago disappeared decades ago. Even more important, the LP has become a fetish/ fad item driving up the price further. 

2. digital playback has improved a lot

3. Driven by point 1, the world supply of original and analog represses from the era has diminished so much, except for classical. The jury is out on new LP reissues, many of which are mastered at 16-bit, 44 kHz. The AAA recordings are 50-200$ each. 

3. here is the critical point: it depends on what type of music you listen to and when it was made

- If the music was born digital, play it back on digital equipment. I agree that 70s new wave sound awesome and better on LP, because point 3. If you think analog production of born-digital sounds better, just EQ it. 

- Some music/recordings benefit from analog playback, which more pleasingly reveals the sound of the decay of instruments in the reverberant room in which they were recorded, so most classical, jazz, or folk from the 1950s - 70s. The complexity of the sound waves of massed instruments, acoustic instruments, voices, again, in a physical space, in my opinion, still isn't captured by digital recording or remastering (not arguing that the technology cannot capture it, but perhaps some other decisions are being made that produce less-pleasing recordings). Per New Wave and soul, I also love the way analog represents the artifacts of studio recordings. This is not a music snobbery argument, just a "right tool for the job" thing. If those recordings of those types of music are not important to you...

Finally, if you don't have a collection already, for all the reasons above, I would not start. 

only if you do not want to play records....

Go for it. It’s just better. Stay up late at night better. And don’t buy the BS about building an album collection. A lot of my faves came at $15-$25. Discogs is your friend.Forget about the ritual of handling the records, reading the inserts etc. Vinyl sounds better and in most cases a lot better.

Unless you have vinyl to play and WANT to play it. OR… you want to collect vinyl and WANT to play it, get a turntable, but only if you are concerned with the nostalgia you feel by playing vinyl and you enjoy the ritual of handling and playing vinyl. If not, unless your vinyl rig costs $100K, your sound quality will be better playing digital or streaming. That’s my 2 cents.

@fritzenheimer

There is conversion of the analogue signal to digital in my system. I don’t find that to be a problem. In fact, it can be a big advantage due to a reduction in noise, distortion and interference.

Only you can tell if vinyl is for you. Some of us think it is glorious. I tried to live without it for a few years, but found streaming and CD rips just didn’t give me the same pleasure. As you have seen, others have quite jaundiced views of vinyl. In reality, there are both pros and cons. It’s a matter of personal taste and judgement.

There’s no getting away from the fact that it can get very expensive both in terms of gear and discs. However, it is possible to dip your toe in the water at fairly modest cost with a ProJect turntable for example. My two sons and daughter have done just that with great success.

You don’t need a huge collection of discs. How often do you think someone with over a thousand plays every disc in their collection? Better to enjoy a few discs. I started out with just a dozen a year ago. Of course, I have many more now, but I am still a listener not a collector.

I find vinyl is a different sort of listening. I still have streaming alongside it to explore new music. I buy the vinyl version of albums that I particular like for a deeper dive into them and a more immersive experience.