Did you match levels with a volt meter? "By the ear" is not good enough! The louder sample will always sound better.
Digital vs Analog experiment
Here is an experiment I did. I own the same recording as
- CD
- High rez file from HD Tracks
- High rez stream from Tidal
- LP
- Exactly same LP recorded by me into 24/96
LP and 24/96 recording sound identical to me. Both sound better than any of the first three. Now, HD Tracks file sounds better than CD, but not by much. Which gives me feeling that what they sell or stream is a studio master before it was downsampled to 16/44 for CD production.
So basically the LP is simply mastered better. CD is mastered to be played in cars and on consumer equipment. LPs tend to be mastered for more advanced listeners, or at least is as compressed.
The issue is not that analog is inherently better. The recording is actually different.