Lovely post on values, AV, spot on.

Here's the sad truth: While all this hair splitting I'm doing is going to be directly pointed at bringing a cogent value structure into view-a task that I think would be mighty productive-when I put all my cards on my table and ask myself for my self what I should focus my resources on, the thing that jumps out like monk in gasoline robe is the fucking masters.

None of what we talk about is worth more than ten percent of the gain in our ability to appreciate music that really good remasters would provide. And NO!, they're not worth $20/album at any bit rate. But I sure as shooting' would be happy to pay $5.99/album for 24/96...and I'd pay it over and over to renew my favorite music. And I'd pay $25/mo for streaming access to 16/44.

BUT THE MASTERS HAVE TO BE THE REAL DEAL GOODS!!!

And that, my friends, is why when we consider the value structure of the audio around us, we should be coming to the conclusion that the most effective thing to do is start burning tire fires around all the big label headquarters. " Hey fuckers! You got our music! We'll pay you a reasonable price in solid American dolla, if you fix our music and let us buy it. But if you're going to pull your blue suite, black hearted, MBA bleeed-em-dry bullshit again, we're going to never, ever, never buy anything from you again because it's all out there free on teh webs. And we'll start our own bands and labels.

Sorry AV, that shit makes my blood boil.

Spot on. I will gladly buy an album in any format to justify me downloading a much better mastering. Maybe it's not entirely ethical but I'm going to go with the best release on the best format that I can find. Speaking of that, pbthal makes some phenomenal vinyl rips. Not all are worth checking out, but there's a lot of gems.

Sorry AV, that shit makes my blood boil.

I will admit I heard a few with a high noise floor and rather muddy. I noticed this with a lot of his 2012 rips actually. Not sure what was going on that year for him but otherwise he's great.