[notahacker]

Not to mention the wider context of starting off by opening a beautifully designed record sleeve, and the chances people choosing to listening to vinyl are doing so on a beautifully engineered soundsystem that cost as much as a car when it was released 50 years ago, or a turntable setup that's designed for them to interact with.

[TheOtherHobbes]

You could add all of that to CD. Bigger packaging for "audiophile pressings", a play ritual, extra distortion and compression, especially in the low end, limited dynamic ranges, minimal stereo separation, even a little randomness so each listening experiences was slightly different.

This is consumer narcissism. It's the driver behind Veblen signalling - the principle that a combination of collecting physical objects. nostalgia, and the elevated taste and disposable wealth required to create a unique shrine to the superior self.

Buying houses, watches, cars, vinyl, yachts, jets, and politicians are all the same syndrome.

Some people take it further than others.

[notahacker]

You could add the audio distortion. You couldn't add the ability to place it on your DJ turntable or vintage record player (which you might have paid a small fortune for or obtained from Dad or a car boot sale). The CD is also unnecessary to obtain the music anyway.

Tbh freshly pressed vinyl is a significant way down the food chain from new cars, never mind jets and conspicuous consumption fine art, and the demographics that buy it don't necessarily have more disposable income than the demographics with Spotify subscriptions hooked up to a mid range modern soundsystem. If you really want to go full Veblen you can probably buy an NFT to give you all the bragging rights of having signalling money to waste without the inconvenience of actually having anything to look after or listen to :)