By this argument there is no such thing as a circle. In reality, the errors in positions close to the optimum point are infinitessimally small. In fact, they are so small that it is unlikely that the CD medium would be fine-grained enough to resolve them.
I am currently enjoying excellent reproduction from a deck and cartridge which together cost me a little over £400. Recently I bought 8000 singles for £100, or a penny and a quarter per track. I don't regard that as "stupid amounts of money".
A statistic which, quite frankly, you have pulled out of your crowded arse.
It is nevertheless true. You simply cannot refute mathematical proofs, inconvenient as they are. And as a vinyl fan, you will no doubt know the reason why 12" p/u arma are available. It is to reduce the playback errors induced by the inherant limitations of vinyl playback.
And how many of those singles were in any way playable? More iportantly, how many of them did you actuallty want the music on? £0.0125 per single is a stupid amount of money if the record is a) f*cked, b) shite. And even if they wer all 1st pressing masterpieces by the greatest bands ever, the fact remains that if you are in any way interested in new music, you are mostly f*cked.
And I base my contention that the vast majority of S/H LPs are knackered from my own experience. I have been collecting music since 1965. I have about 1200 LPs & 2500 singles/EPs. A goodly proportion of which I bought second hand.
And even at the peak of vinyl's popularity, most 2nd hand LPs were ****ed. They had mostly been played on some mass market groove grinder, were covered in fingerprints & fag ash & quite honestly fit only for landfill.
Now, you might want to be the audio equivalent of a steam train enthusiast, getting covered in soot & shite whilst taking an inferior form of transport from one place nobody has heard of to another nobody wants to go to, and that's just fine.
But at least do not try to con people who do not know any better that your obsession has anything whatsoever to do with the search for true audio excellence. It is an anachronistic, technologically inferior dead end used mostly for playing sub-standard (all the good condition LPs having been snapped up years ago) old music.
And stick that up YOUR arse, sunshine.
Chris