An interesting snippet from a March 2015 interview with Steven Wilson that started off with his affirmation that everyone should be recording (and listening) at the 96-kilohertz/24-bit standard and then segued into this key point:

I think it’s worth saying again that all of this high-resolution stuff is pointless if the mastering sucks. Bad mastering is more of a problem than things being released at CD resolution, or even MP3s. What’s nice about this move to 96/24 is the amount of things that are coming out in flat transfers — no compression, and no mastering engineers fucking up the sound. That is a very, very good development in the history of music.

I’ve spoken with many an artist who’s said, “I turned in my final approved master, and what I got back on the back end is not what I heard in studio at all.” You’ve taken control of the mastering stage yourself and you don’t have to give anyone instructions about what to do anymore, right?

The simple answer is I don’t have any of my work mastered. It goes straight from my mixes — flat transfers onto the disc. And that applies to the mixes I do for the Yes reissues, the XTC reissues, the Jethro Tull reissues, and of course my own work too. And it’s amazing how many of the musicians I speak to, when I say to them, “I don’t want this mastered” — they’re initially shocked. But then they understand. Why would you need this mastered? You’ve approved the masters and you think the mixes sound great, so why would you not just release them as they are?

Now, I’m not saying that’s right for everyone, because some people need or want that extra pair of ears to check what they’ve done. But I’m at the stage now where I’m 100 percent confident that what I produce out of my studio is exactly the way I want people to hear it. I actually bypass mastering completely now.

To borrow a song title from Hand. Cannot. Erase., some people think it is “Routine” to go to mastering, and that’s just the way they have to do it.

I think people have been brainwashed a lot over the years that mastering engineers do something magical, almost like a black hat, and I think, actually, mastering is not necessary.

A lot of albums are coming out with flat transfers, and the audiophiles seem to love the flat transfers. There’s no compression of the dynamics, there’s no sort of nastiness on the top end and bass. I think it’s beginning to become a little bit of a trend, which I think is a positive trend.