There are a number of reasons for crappy masters these days. One of which I am just realizing now is that a place such as the Exchange specializes in that kind of "prime" sounding techno. Therefore, I've noticed a lot of records cut there that aren't prime techno don't sound as good as they could have. A lot of the minimal records are mastered pretty awfully mainly because of the artist's final mix down. A lot of those tracks are done with standard Ableton plug-ins and all those newbie producers don't know anything about mastering. I think most techno coming out these days sounds pretty well mastered though. Then again, I don't shop for records that much anymore too.

On the positive side of it all, it seems like bad mastering jobs sometimes make records even more raw than they already are. The old disco mania stuff was ****ing mickey mouse, but it still has a lot more attitude and style than most of the house/techno coming out these days.