I have a transport and dac circa £3000, valve amp about same running into a pair of monitor Audio floorstanders and have always been very happy with the sound they produce, but last year I bought a 20 year old Rega Planar 3 fitted a new drive belt and an Adio Technica AT120e cartride and needle £100 put one of my old albums and was blown away. To my ears in my house on the equipment I have there is no comparison the CD,s are good but the vinyl is in a diferent league as for scratches I always looked after my vinyl so not really a problem. I now buy both vinyl and cd versions one for convenience (car,computor etc) and one for listening pleasure. I dont care what the theories are the variouse formats are just tools some of which are better for some things than others imho of course