First off I think it's an amazing album, and bet it'll be a great live show whenever it is I see them perform next.
Some of you may know the current stigma and issues surrounding it's release, some not so I'll quickly explain.
Metallica released the album on CD, Vinyl, Digital Download and as a Content Pack for Guitar Hero 3.
People were argueing that the mastering is a bit whack on the release having no to little bass guitar present and dynamic range limited and distorted etc
People then ran the retail tracks through a spectrum analyser and discovered that the whole release had been 'clipped' or 'brickwalled', this basically is a process where the volume of a release is increased and then the ends of the waveforms are chopped off in order to sounder 'louder' and stick out on radio play etc, however removing the dynamic range of everything instrumental usually
People then noticed that the Guitar Hero 3 release sounded better than the retail CD, the songs were extracted from GH3 and also ran through a spectrum analyser and were discovered to still have all their dynamic range in tact with little difference to the retail releases.
A good video/sound comparison can be found here (watch in high quality if you can) ->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyIACDCc1I&eurl
Since then many petitions and news sites have documented the changes and are asking for a reason as it why the retail release is of such poor 'quality' as of yet Metallica have not issued a statement as to the reasons and differences. As well as torrent and audio communities creating their own remastered mixes from the GH3 extracted audio files.
What's your opinions on this matter, I've listened to the retail, 1 GH3 remastered version of the album, and a mix of 'Broken Beat and Scarred' by a 'Mystery Producer' and you can really tell the difference between them quality and sound wise with the retail being the worst I'm hoping that the GH3 format is fully cracked and each audio layer extracted in full audio perfection and recreated with the full dynamic range.
So yeah, your opinions?
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