The CBS MasterSound WYWH is definitely improved over the other US and European contemporary releases, but has notable shortcomings IMO. I actually prefer my first generation CD to it; one of the very few I do favor in such a comparison. If I recall correctly, the CBS half-speeds were all early attempts to remaster with digital technology. The results were generally better but still suffered from a lot of the digital artifacts that still plague many CDs today such as excessive compression and weak soundstage. My gen-1 CD was made directly from the analog master tape without compression and just seems more musical. It is very close to my Japanese home-market audiophile vinyl pressing from 1978 (which is the best vinyl copy of WYWH I have).
With half-speed pressings, I personally prefer MFSL by a large margin. They were almost all made with JVC Super Vinyl, which was far, far better than anything before or since. The MFSL engineers used a light touch tweaking the remasters too, and preserved the artist's intent. Donald Fagen's The Nightfly is one of the very best examples. There are others too, including DSOTM. All of them blow away the original releases, hands down.
One vinyl technology you might find interesting is the Sheffield direct-to-disk mastering. The entire performance is captured live, in one take, directly to the master disk used to drive the cutter heads. They only made a few, but they are almost all superb. You might want to look for the Track Record. It's got 4 thumping rock-n-roll tracks that will give your system a real workout. Check into it if you have a chance.
Happy listening!
