The Megadeth PS 2011 remaster/25th anniv. edition...is it the original mix?

On of the best examples is Rush. They remixed One Little Victory to tone down the loudness and what do you know, there was a great song there. Wish they'd redo the whole album.

Dark Horseman wrote:

On of the best examples is Rush. They remixed One Little Victory to tone down the loudness and what do you know, there was a great song there. Wish they'd redo the whole album.

They've been talking about that for a couple years now, hopefully one day they'll get around to it.

Not all loud mastering sucks, fellas. Ear fatigue only happens when loud isn't done correctly. Was this not done correctly? No one's talking about how it actually sounds. I'm downloading it now...will report back my thoughts in a bit.

I'm listening to this now and I've looked at it in Wavelab. The mastering is fantastic by modern standards, it's not at all overly crushed. The EQ is great and there's nothing here that should lead anyone to have ear fatigue after listening to it.

Cliffy wrote:

I'm listening to this now and I've looked at it in Wavelab. The mastering is fantastic by modern standards, it's not at all overly crushed. The EQ is great and there's nothing here that should lead anyone to ear fatigue after listening to it.

I prefer dynamic range, I hate modern mastering.

I agree, but dynamic range is simply quiet things being properly quiet in relation to louder parts. Is there better instrument and vocal clarity in this master when compared to the original? Yes. Is the top end properly smoothed out so as to not be harsh? Yes. Is the bottom end enhanced without being woofy and without taking over the guitars? Yes. Are there any unnatural sounding swells due to the improper use of compression? No.

This ain't the retail version of Metallica's Death Magnetic album, my man.

Metal music isn't very dynamic to begin with, squashing the crap out of it in the mastering stage just makes it worse. Some compression is fine, but a very little bit goes a long way. Some very compressed albums sound fine...but I find those to be in the minority.

Compare the overly compressed US Rush remasters (1997) with the "no-compression" MFSL releases...then compare those with the happy medium ground Japanese SHM-CD reissues from a couple years ago. In that case I actually prefer the Japanese version which is mildly compressed, the MFSLs sound kind of "polite" by comparison...both versions sound much better than the regular brickwalled CDs.

I hear you...and I agree. I will say that the worst period for mastering was from the very late 90's to about 2006. Since then there are more mastering engineers that are getting the louder results without ruining the music so much.