It's seldom that simple. Much of the time with older music, a good clean vinyl rip can sound much better than a poorly mastered early digital transfer (like is often the case with first CD releases of albums first released in the 60s).

I'm with you and OP that poor rips do indeed sound bad (like spotting a bad toupee), but I wouldn't discount all vinyl rips out of hand. For example, I much prefer my PBTHAL rips of the original mono vinyl releases of the Beatles albums to even the modern remasters.