Fred, I am pretty familiar with that album, and I'd be surprised if you found the CD version as satisfying as the other impeccably-produced disks you mentioned. Like Alan, I don't think it is the (lossy) compression. I've always been disappointed that the production quality of Yes recordings doesn't live up to the level of the virtuosity.
If I was going to spend time ripping my CD collection (and I DID...) I'd rip to FLAC. It takes more space but it is lossless, and there are utilities you can use to convert from FLAC to lower bitrate MP3's for portable devices. Storage is cheap. Just make sure you back-up
