Yeah there is something about tape, I don’t know what it is. There was a track I loved ages ago it always just sounded so good and a lot later after falling in love with it I read about the production and it was all recorded on tape
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I don’t think that’s the fault of the streaming platforms per se (most of them have loudness normalisation, so there’s no point in trying to squash everything as much as possible) . Loudness wars started in the CD age
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In all fairness, hard panning never sounded really nice to begin with, especially not on headphones. Try switching to mono while listening to music now and then, there’s a lot of modern production that does use stereo in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Of course, in music that’s mostly intended to be danced to, keeping things mostly mono, especially in the low-end still just works better on most club systems.
…well, that’s all pretty cryptic resonance full on here…
keep on good feel guessing vibes all over the place… 
Tape machines compress and saturate in a pleasant way, especially when you push the input level. It can also smooth out transients which results in a “glued” effect.
Depending on how they’ve been set up and their age, tap introduces wow, flutter, nice hiss, bias, and crosstalk effects which can all sound nice depending on context and which most certainly add a certain sense of nostalgia.
Please note that there’s nothing magical about these effects. They’re easy to replicate with other gear, existing effects, or with dedicated tape simulation. Lots of great stuff for this on the market if you like that sound. Highly recommended on your mastering bus. 
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WOW. So many opinions yet not a single straight answer.
Discogs can help. If you click on the edition, under “notes”, there may or may not be some (user provided) info on this.
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The conditioning effect that tape does to high freq content is something I still haven’t heard emulated perfectly by any plugin. If you record, say, a reed ensemble to tape, you will easily hear what I mean. Horns and reed instruments love tape.
Many people assume the effects tape cause are just the unwanted changes (added noise, flutter, crosstalk etc) but that’s not all there is to tape IME
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I’ll go with the non-subtle way ! 
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I think these guys are at least able to get from recording to lacquer cutting without leaving the analogue realm.
http://www.gearboxrecords.com/home.html#aboutgearbox
I also think the idea there is any real need to do so kinda misunderstands how digital audio works a bit, but then, whatever gets people the Mojo they need is all cool, huh?
edit - tbh, from what I know of them, they probably haven’t cut any psytrance though.
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but then recording from that tape digitally doesn’t suddenly remove the tape effect, which I guess is the more pertinent thing in regards the OP…
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Usually, if you see “mastered and cut by [xxx]” in the credits then you’re getting music that’s been mastered specifically for the vinyl medium. Like the old days. Nothing to do with whether analogue gear was used in the production/mixing process or not.
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My recordings are so analog I don’t even put them on records I just think about them, for that fuzzy warm memory type hypothetical sound. Back in my day we just used to just think about music before all this cold lifeless analog stuff came about. Can’t replicate that
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Kind of surprised about the aggression towards the OP on this thread…
The original pressing of Stereolab “Sound Dust” was AAA, as well as the My Bloody Valentine Isn’t Anything/Loveless remasters (and the “MBV” album, I think). Digital in the mastering process was introduced at least as far back as 1982, maybe even earlier (late 70s?), before whatever time that was all vinyl would be AAA.
I love vinyl but it’s qualities have been overstated and, for modern electronic music, made at home & recorded onto computers, you’re probably going to get a just-as-good-if-not-better experience buying WAVs or FLACs from like Bandcamp. There’s a lot to be said about quality of modern vinyl production… it’s not great.
If you convert to digital and then back to vinyl, you are still pressing a continuous (non-stepped) wave into the actual material and you are going to get a sound that takes on quality of the actual vinyl material/format - whatever that’s worth, it’s a matter of opinion, I have mine, not going down that rabbit hole…
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This. Exactly
@spikysimon Yes, but the rise of streaming made it a lot worse.
Since Vinyl has a more confined dynamic range, it will have even a more negative impact on sound quality where even more dynamic range and thus detail is lost due to the aggressive mastering techniques being used today.
Loudness is the main priority, since dynamic range and detail gets lost with the aggressive compression done by streaming services. So why would a master engineer even bother?
Especially since record labels don’t care either and won’t pay for special masters for vinyl, since the average consumer won’t even notice nor care about it. They just buy it for the hype and cool factor!
They mainly listen Spotify/Apple Music and don’t even know what high fidelity music sounds like.
I myself still have plenty of CD’s from end 80’s and early 90’s, which sound a hell lot better than music releases today or even the thousand of House Vinyl records I bought between 2000 and 2008!
Which just proofs my point. 
I’ve made digitally recorded albums that were pressed to vinyl. That digital material sounded not at all digital when played back from the LP. That’s the reason to do it.
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I have to say there is nothing like a properly mastered vinyl on a full size stereo. These kids and their phone speakers and streaming just don’t know. No wonder they only listen to 5 seconds of each song.
“It’s such a sadness that you think you’ve seen a film on your fucking telephone. Get real.” - David Lynch
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Hang on, wouldn‘t a narrow dynamic range actually require a more aggressive mastering - to let the audio not overextend out of this range - to make it sound good? 
I‘m just following the line of reasoning here.
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Wow that’s a new viewpoint!
All recording techniques produce artifacts, as well as the input and output transducers. (Purely digital transducers are impossible – or are they?)
So to expand on original posters focus, besides vinyl and tape, you could consider other analog methods such as the various sound-on-film techniques (there’s probably a half dozen or so), and the qualities they produce. Has anyone tried a wire-recorder?
Or how about recording with a phonautograph. (Earliest known device for sound resording.) I think a modernized version of this could be quite good.