Much of the vinyl noise and distortion is pressed into the vinyl itself. Even if you play it using an optical player it will still sound worse than a good CD.
My point was more that vinyl has a distinct sound, whereas CDs are just the digital files in a physical package. So if someone decides that distortion suits a particular album better, it's not going to "sound worse" to them.
And some do. But music listening is a personal experience, and sometimes the preference of the artists doesn't match that of the listener. Should an artist also prescribe the correct speakers/headphones to listen to their album?
Saying that vinyl doesn't have a distinct sound is a pretty wild take. It's pretty obvious if you've ever listened to vinyl and switched to a lossless version on the same setup. But here's some reading, nonetheless:
CDs have no distinct sound. CD quality (assuming correct dithering) is transparent to human hearing. You could play a vinyl record into a good ADC, dither it to 16 bits, then burn it to CD-R. It will sound 100% identical to the original vinyl in a blind test. The only way to tell the difference is that the vinyl continues to degrade with each playback, while the CD-R will last decades if stored correctly (pressed CDs last even longer).
