Vinyl plates or the tapes they use for vinyl can be almost as good as masters. At least for some of the jazz stuff I really hope there are other analog copies. I have some Loius Armstrong 45s I restored that I don't think there are any masters for. Those are some of my favorite recordings even though they are vinyl recorded to digital.

So Half-Life and DYWM masters are lost? Damn that sucks. I wonder if the unsequenced tapes are somewhere. Sometimes The Roots vinyl are cut from a different nonsequenced Tape with gaps between the tracks.

http://keymusic.bandcamp.com/album/apophenia

https://keymusic.bandcamp.com/