A new record sounds pretty good when played on a good turntable with a good cartridge, but it’s not as good as a properly mixed CD or lossless audio file. A worn or dirty record sounds like crap. A cheap turntable will also sound like crap and a ceramic cartridge wears out records fairly quickly.

With a CD, there is very little difference in sound quality between the cheapest player you can find and a high end player. The CD will always sound the same until it’s too worn out to play at all.