The best way to master vinyl is to send a data CDR with a 24-bit audio file to a cutting engineer who has reference quality digital-to-analog convertors, EQ and compressors.
When I went to NSC Ron had something like a Denon rack CD player and played the CD through SAE EQ into the cutting lathe. I haven't been to Ron's new place but his old setup looked pretty low tech. He was eating grocery store potato salad throughout my cutting session, but I don't think that affected sound quality. If there's any audible difference between a DAT and a CD, it's because one or the other of them is defective, or has crap convertors. Bits is bits. I'd generally give a CDR the edge because there's no problem with the heads getting dirty or misaligned. I don't believe that anyone can tell the difference between MP3 and vinyl on a club system blasting at 130dBA, unless they're listening for surface noise and scratches. Hell, I can't even hear stereo on a club system, and any sane person should have earplugs in besides. If a recording sounds 'flat' it means it wasn't produced right, or it wasn't mastered right. When I do mastering, I come tracks like this all the time, and sometimes they can be rescued with a touch of BBE Sonic Maximizer. Other times all I can do is bring the levels up to CD standard and issue a disclaimer. The usual problem is misuse of EQ or compression during tracking or mixdown, but sometimes the production is too busy. The best thing you can possibly do with a techno record is to make the whole thing with as few sounds going at once as possible.
