David I don't agree i think the album was mastered perfectly. the "sound" u refer to was made for radio, which was consciously a very different effort than the other 2 albums you referenced. i do absolutely hear ya (and Dylan) on todays compressed files and all though, with live stuff u have to know what u r DLing.  i DLed the album on i tunes and pre ordered one from Best By so ill see how different they sound, if at all.  in general todays live &amp; studio mp3 files are much larger in size and much better sounding than those of a couple years ago.

2farnorth and everyone else that hasnt caved in to itunes or technology in general i am absolutely in your corner.  no question the whole scene has turned into such overkill i cant even keep up w all the free GPN vids, clips, photos and such just on FB alone...i finally switched to mac after a decade of frustrations with windows and it is by far much more user friendly.  if u r on this blog page right now there is nothing u can not accomplish with ease with a mac.  especially if you are into live music and audio files u got 2 consider a mac and say goodbye to DLing programs to decompress and unzip shit that dont work half the time and will be obsolete in 6 months anyway. i tunes does it all instantly/automatically, no bullshit whatsoever.   and i can load a ton of mp3s onto my blackberry.  in addition to the streaming pandora blakberry app. (nope no iphone aint goin there) and stream it all in my car over the car speakers.  so while computers in general suck im not so broken up about the whole thing after all since most of my cds skip, if they are even in one piece.  plus macs dont get viruses, they r designed 2 attack windows programs.  just sayin.