Well, it took me longer than I'd hoped because I was working my way through The Beatles new mono and stereo sets but I was finally able to compare and contrast the new remaster of TUF with the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs 24K Gold Master Recording CD and...
in my opinion...
the winner is...
the MFSL disc. Why, you ask? Much like THE JOSHUA TREE beforehand, general fidelity seemed equal between the two (in other words, neither was noticeably louder or clearer than the other); however, I noticed two distinct differences between the two, one slight, one more notable. In the slight difference category, the new remaster actually gave a tad more clarity to the higher frequencies; it didn't make for any dramatic change, though. Most evident for me was hearing the acoustic guitars chiming in at the close of the title track with more clarity and transparency than I'd heard before. In the more notable corner, identical to the experience I had with THE JOSHUA TREE remaster vs. MFSL comparison, the bass on the MFSL is much richer, punchier and weightier. Now, people seem to be of two minds about that. For some, this level of bass seems "overcooked", murky and too "thick"; for others, like me, it adds needed bouancy, power and just sheer rock-and-rollness to the album. Also, as a slight side note, you can clearly hear the tape hiss from "Elvis Presley and America" sharply end as we move into "MLK" on the remaster, which I find off-putting; no such sharp audio drop-off is evident on the MFSL. So, for my money, though the remaster is obviously a clear improvement upon the earlier mass releases of TUF, I'll be sticking with the MFSL for my future listening needs. That said, the bonus CD with remixes and b-sides sounds fabulous, much better than any previous CD versions I've heard and, actually, to my ears, packs more sonic wallop than the remastered TUF album proper.
