I have a bit of a different take.
Understandable. Vinyl is a pretty kludgy system, vulnerable to sounding different depending on the turntable/cartridge/set up etc.
That's why I never want to use it for evaluating gear, like speakers. And it's why I tend to restrict my comments to how vinyl has shaken out in my system.
I have two old 5th dimension recordings, one digital and one vinyl. Both played through a SET amp (or solid state either way). Now, the digital version is maybe "cleaner" in that the images are more pinpoint, however, not all instruments act like that in real life, the vinyl one the images are larger and more expansive and "touch" each other, and I find that this is the thing that I like about vinyl in general, its imaging. Yes there is some very minor added flesh, but for me the imaging is King.
I would even say this property is a bit of a magical fix for stereo and the way I enjoy music. When you listen to an unamplified cymbal for example as I just did again today down at the fest, it shimmers and expands greatly, where digital will tend to pinpoint it and vinyl will let it expand and is more natural sounding. Now, as you get further back from that cymbal, it becomes less expansive and more pinpoint, so one of the things that vinyl kind of does is get you closer to the instruments, less pinpointing, more flesh and energy.
Interesting.
I concentrate a lot on the sound of cymbals too.
In my experience/system, digital sounds just cleaner enough to render cymbals with more timbral nuance. High hats and ride cymbals are tricky - they are a tiny slice of the high frequency spectrum, right up there where some nasty things can happen - everything from distortion in the recording process, source (e.g. vinyl distortion), room reflections etc. High hats especially, I find, can, with any additional distortion, very easily sound timbrally two-dimensional, more like modulated bursts of white noise vs the 'real' metallic object they are. I find that problem tends to happen on vinyl more often. On digital I find the timbre of cymbals more often sounds nuanced and properly "metallic." And if a player is playing all around his ride cymbal, the nuances of the changing cymbal timbre is more clear on the digital.
Balanced against that is how, to my ear, the vinyl version often sounds more "solid" and "there." (Especially snares). So, two different aspects of realism - one better captured in digital playback, the other sometimes better on vinyl. Today I was passing by a couple street bands, and listening to the drums...yup...there was that balance of just those two qualities - real timbral nuance in the cymbals and snare and rim shots that I hear more on digital, but also that sense of solidity that I hear more often on vinyl.
I understand why some would say if you have both a digital source and a turntable, why bother throwing much effort at the vinyl. It's never going to be as accurate as the digital, so relax and enjoy. But in my case I started off really enjoying certain aspects of the vinyl sound on my previous turntable but wondered if I could ALSO get some of what I liked about the cleaner digital sound. When I upgraded my turntable/arm/cartridge that's exactly what I got: Everything cleaned up, lower overall noise, more clarity, more precision, more detail. For my money it got close to a "best of both worlds" sound - a "holy cow" aspect of detail, but also with just enough of the vinyl signature that I like as well. 'Course it's not perfect, which is why I still love listening to my digital source. But I'm damned happy!