Vinyl Records - How they are made?

I am a self admitted music snob. Not necessarily a vinyl snob, but I do have somewhere in the area of 500 or so vinyl records. I, myself, don't really hear much difference between a 320 kbps digital recording and a vinyl recording of the same music... But the visual artist in me sees a definite difference between the 12" inch album cover and the 5" inch CD cover and even the 1" inch MP3 image on your chosen media player.

So to me, the object itself is important... Yes, of course the music is the most important thing... But, the album cover, the liner notes, the weight of the album as it comes out of it's sleeve, the act of putting it on the turntable, even the act of listening to it through the pops and crackles seems to make you pay more attention to the music than you would if it came up on shuffle in your ipod.