Well, okay, see, here’s the thing…
[puts mastering engineer hat on]
CD will always sound different after vinyl, in terms of high end and dynamic range. And that’s because vinyl, despite it’s analog loveliness — is an inherently limited medium. By comparison a CD will sound like it has more high end, because vinyl cannot reproduce, no matter how good your turntable, high frequencies. When we master for vinyl, we usually have to throw an elliptical limiter on the high end to reduce sibilance and high frequencies substantially, lest the lathe burn straight through the acetate.
You’ve got a classic A/B problem. If you’d listened to the CD first, you might think the vinyl sounded dull and muffled.
Similarly with dynamic range: vinyl actually has _less_ functional dynamic range than CD (something like 70db vs 110db) — but it also can’t handle the same sorts of loudnesses that digital can. So there’s a tradeoff in vinyl.
Other limitations that go into the vinyl mastering process— bass is usually in mono, because stereo bass grooves are too wide for a normal stylus, there tends to be a lot of compression (but not a lot of makeup gain) applied to kepe the grooves readable by your average stylus, and there are specific EQ curves applied.
So don’t be fooled by the assertion that vinyl is inherently a “purer” medium. The gyrations a mastering engineer needs to go through to prepare a song for pressing to vinyl are numerous.
