Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

When you talk about MC carts, there are  MC carts and there are MC carts. The 103 is a reasonable cart and that’s it.
  Really if one wants great results from your cart,then a high quality phono pre is mandatory. Be it a tube pre or solid state, once again you have to audition a number of them to get the staging and depth that is displayed by a really good phono pre.
  I am sorry, but a really good used Benz micro glider, a Plinius 14 solid state phono pre and a tube preamp is a different reality.
  I would say, you moved to this new CD unit because your previous CD was dry, gritty and fatiguing, even a valve CD would have been an improvement.

"Digital recording pressed in vinyl vs a digital recording on digital. Now, listen to a real analog recording on analog record vs a the CD of that recording and we can talk."

If Exile On Main St. is considered analog, I prefer the record but CD I have around would be objectively better. I think I like the record because it is how I heard it when it mattered. That is not that much of a recording pinnacle so it may not be fair to judge based on it. Beggars Banquet, Italian pressing from about 1980, is, to me, not as good as 2003 SACD. Same for German pressings of It’s Only Rock’n’Roll and Goat’s Head Soup vs. CDs. However, I enjoy watching the yellow label rotating and that is where record is unbeatable.

For now, digital recording pressed on vinyl vs. a digital recording on digital seemed to me significantly better which is about the opposite from what OP found.

Based on a minuscule sample of one, it may be less to it than all the theories we make would make us believe. I did no fine adjustments, obviously crossed analog/digital recording divide, and used less-than-revered analog equipment using integrated amplifier’s phono input.

Is there any recording that exists as digital and analog at the same time? That would be the only way to compare without having objections that it is digital pressed on vinyl or vice versa.

Unless we find such a recording, we may not have anything to talk about, it seems.

Re The Blue Raincoat, yes, I know it’s supposed to be some kind of audiophile classic, but I mean, come on!

I’ve found its very easy to convince yourself that digital is better. It can be made to sound good enough by any reasonable (& some unreasonable standards) with on occasion some really excellent qualities, that can easily make it make it irresistible - if you let yourself get drawn into the convenience. This last is the great rationalizer & stimulant to ignore the inconvenient truth analog can be made to represent. Yes, as others have pointed out here it can certainly be a PITA but it still is what it is. Get it all right and there is unquestionably a delicacy, humanity and a rainbow of harmonics easily discernible that the very best digital can simulate quite well in the same way a fabulous reproduction of a painting can suggest a great deal of the original’s beauty. The human imagination is a glorious thing and can convince us that the reproduction has more than enough beauty for our needs. That’s not wrong necessarily - just not the deeper truth we need to understand. Let me put it another way. I wear glasses. When I take them off & look at my hand or anything else nearby (I’m myopic) I can see that textures have more detail and are truer and more beautiful as so much more detail is noticeably clearer. With the glasses on I can see greater distances, read better & navigate through spaces far better, but it’s more like looking through a video camera. The images are sharper but less organic and/or natural as well as less detailed. I choose to ignore the greater visual fidelity for the advantages & convenience my glasses offer. I’m not listening to music however which is supposed to be transporting. If you choose not to surrender to the most innermost virtues of music, analog can provide - then don’t. But persuading yourself it’s every bit as good, simply isn’t true. I still very much like looking at paintings with my glasses on but if I want a really good look, I take them off & get close.

If I had to defer to experts I would refer to the late Harry Pearson and his unofficial successor, Jonathon Valin of the Absolute Sound. HP said at one point, comparing the two formats just led to heartache because digital could never come up to the same standard - one just had to accept digital on its own terms. Exactly. Valin is listening to the latest, best digital now (as a secondary option) & finds it very good & enjoyable indeed, but admits, even so, his analog rig is usefully & obviously better in ways he’s not prepared to forego & does not see any horizon where that will change.