Scientist John Meyer of Newform Research has tried to settle the long-running debate about the fidelity and quality of CD and digital technologies and vinyl and analog tech. The result attempts to mathematically quantify the differences in all the technologies and assigns a "fidelity" rating to each thing.
Vinyl aficionados may find the results interesting, though not completely satisfying. For example, the researcher finds that vinyl has a wider frequency range (50 khz) than CD (44.1 khz) but a narrower bitrate (12.5) than CD (16) and the result is a slightly lower overall fidelity according to the study. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the debate will be settled by this study alone.
Check out the report and let us know what you prefer.