@gnuplusmatt
CD audio is better quality than vinyl, so that's not a reason.
However, vinyl has some limitations that improve sound quality. Mastering often involves a device called a compressor (which has nothing to do with mp3 compression), and modern music tends to crank this device up way too high. This is known as the Loudness Wars. Doing this makes listening to the music fatigueing.
Digital formats handle this compressed music perfectly, but on vinyl it reduces the amount of playing time, so more records are needed to hold the same music (costs money) and when turned up really high it can make the needle jump out of the groove.
As a result, mastering for vinyl is different than for digital. Vinyl sounds better because it can't handle the mistreatment done to digital music.
Music mastered like vinyl but delivered digitally would get you the best of both worlds
(Better reproduction from being digital and better mastering for vinyl), but you'll only find that in classical music.
mforester