Albert, well put, with vinyl I get the goose bumps, the chills going up my spine when the emotion is felt. For instance, Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Ray Brown and Jake Hanna playing Seven Come Elleven at Concord just burns with fire and passion. I have both CD and an LP. It's the LP that sets off the neurons and chemicals in my body to hyper sensitivity. I can hear and feel the guitar work, rythm and suspense, excitement in the crowd as they anticipate the musics next movement. I'm not much of a classical music fan, but the same thing happens to me when i hear Mozarts Eine Kliene Nacht Music by the Budapest Quartet. The beautiful sweet and quiet, then soaring clarinet, playing in front of the mourning strings, can bring tears to my eyes which a CD cannot do. After hearing this and a few other LPs, I was inspired to sit in on a few chamber music concerts. I loved it so much.
Jean is correct as well. It does not take a huge investment in time nor money, to get HUGE returns in musicality. What it takes is the right approach. One can have wonderful music, for under 1k. I say this because I just gave a turntablle to a friend who has crappy Sony electronics, old Pioneer speakers and he is in love with his 500+ 1950, 1960,1970s vinyl collection all over again because he had never heard the dynamcs and rythm and bloom which were in the grooves before! Lucky for him, most of his LPs are mint- Ellington, Basie, Professor Long Hair, Tatum, Jazz and rock, etc.
His system proves to me that it is really the source that matters. If you have a crappy turntable, it doesn't matter how good the electroncs and speakers and cables are. The source which plays the medium has to be good. Jean has a great recipe for a damn good analog source which has been proven to me and it is not super expensive.
Again, the emotion and musicality are what matters most to us audio nuts. Even with some clicks and noises, I get it most from LPs than with CDs. In large part, CDs were a marketing coup- convenience, noiseless, etc. But what they don't tell us is that it really lacks SOUL.
At our quarterly audio listening sessions, 4-6 audio fools get together and 95% of our precious time is spent spinning vinyl Hardly anyone attempts to play their Wadia, Meridian, Naim CD players. We eagerly pull out LPs because that's where the magic is. The music sound wave.
The question posted is can we live in a world without vinyl? maybe you can.