I think OP is overly focused on sound quality. When I was a kid, I didn't appreciate any material difference in sound quality between vinyl, CD, and cassette. I listened to music on cheap walkman headphones or a small boombox, or in a car with standard cheap speakers. Cassettes were better than vinyl because you could play them in your car and because they were writable: you could record songs off the radio or make mixtapes on them. CDs were better than vinyl because you could play them in your car and better than cassettes because you could replay or skip tracks with a push of a button.