iTunes Reissues are Terrible! or ..."Curse you, Hallmark!"

I was recently given an iTunes gift card in appreciation for a wedding project. I was a kid in a candy store. "Oh, the things I could buy!" I of course was thinking immediately of adding to my arsenal of great orchestral music. Searching all the greats, Weston, Luboff, Faith, I immediately noticed that in taking over these recordings, The Hallmark Corporation had not only put them all on iTunes, but at an amazing price. Most of them were $5.99, an incredible bargain for a full length album these days. I selected one, "Paul Weston's "Dream Time Music" (from the original Columbia Catalog, of course) and after it downloaded, transferred it to disc, and put it on while I did some housework. I was thoroughly disgusted. The recordings were obviously poorly transferred, and not even from an original source. It was almost as if it was poorly done through a cassette tape rendering of the albums. The sound was extremely muddy, and a pervasive Tape hiss completely compromised the recording. Looking to my stash of Paul Weston LPs, I put one on, hopefully to get some level of comparison, and the difference was unreal. Straight vinyl, and compromised vinyl at that, was way better from a sonic standpoint than what Apple was trying to pass off to me as a pro-grade recording. We can do better here at East Malaysia, and I guarantee that Hallmark could have too, had they tried. So friends, the music business isn't dead as Jon Bon Jovi Says it is. Vinyl is still out there, and growing in availability. Get yourself a turntable, and plug back in!