I dare say some of this has made it onto CD, but I'm sure the music loses its soul in the process.

Unlike the very early years of CD, no. My recent experiences of going back to original master tapes in a good studio and mastering for CD is that for the first time I hear on CD how it sounded in the original studio. I'd forgotten how good some of my guitars sounded back then. A good example is the recent Hux re-issue of Dr Strangely Strange's Kip Of The Serenes compared with the dog's breakfast Island made of the CD version a decade or so back. Helps if the artist or original producer is involved, mind you.

On the other hand, some lowlife eejit plugging a cheap USB turntable into a PC and making shit dubs of a dubious vinyl pressing and then posting the result on the web as compressed mp3s for people to steal does nobody any good, even the thieves, but especially the music.

You just don't get it, do you?