Vinyl has a frequency range of up to around 23khz with a 'slope' affect where its frequency response falls after the peak,
With CD, there is a 'brickwall' filter which means nothing above a certain frequency will get past (about 22 kHz)
Although human hearing is alegedly only around 20Hz - 20kHz (16kHz for most of us ) its been proven that we can detect information up to 26kHz which can go towards explaining why vinyl has much more 'atmosphere' or 'presence'- for want of a better word.
CD replay has to counteract 'jitter', RF interference and allsorts of other stuff before it gets to your ears. And for vinyl, you have bad earthing, bearing noise, dust on the needle, worn records and so on.
Back in the olden days of analog, mixing decks had just as good a frequency range as modern digital stuff, they were only limited by source material.
The recorders at the time could in theory go up to about 27khz, microphones about 23khz or so.
Now, in the cynical 21st century, we have the capability of mixing up to just about any frequency we like (whether its there in the original recording or not). Unfortunately, most music is mixed to a very compressed format to meet the demands of radio, mp3 and so on. This can lead to a very unsatisfactory noise!
A few bands still make the most of there recordings, Massive Attack are well known for this. Indeed, you can look for this yourself if you have access to an oscillascope, you can rig it up to catch the 'squaring off' of peaks on a recording that should, if correctly mixed/mastered, have nice round peaks. You will find that alot of recordings 'clip' badly or contain a lot of distortion that really makes listening to new stuff, awfull.
Music on DVD seems to have been looked after, I prefer albums on DVD over CD, you get to watch the videos too..
Now, this is only from my own experience, after working as an accoustic tech at Wharfedale and after my helpdesk stint at TAG McLaren Audio, so apologies if some of the technical details are inaccurate.