Metallica

[Mosh]

Would the vinyl of Death Magnets be better mastered/no clipping than the CD, just due to the medium? Because if so, it's also probably possible to find a FLAC vinyl rip somewhere.

Not necessarily if it used a digital master, which is often the case with new vinyl pressings. My understanding is that the vinyl does sound better for Death Magnetic but that the gold standard is the "unmastered" stems from Guitar Hero.

 

[Jer]

the gold standard is the "unmastered" stems from Guitar Hero.

Except those aren’t mixed, so any reconstruction of the album from those stems would be a fan mix at best. And presumably they’re 16-bit / 48KHz max.

As long as the source recordings themselves weren’t objectively brickwalled (which they weren’t), the 24-bit source recordings would have 256 times as much amplitude granularity as the 16-bit stems, which would give you a lot more information to work with if you needed to reestablish more dynamic range. This is the real advantage of an HD remaster.

 

[stvn1974]

The Mastered For iTunes version of Death Magnetic is a lot better than the CD/Vinly. The same mastering is also avaliable on Metallica's website as lossless downloads in different formats. I recommend it. I downloaded the MFIT version and burned it to a CD-R which I put in the Death Magetic jewel case and that is what I listen to now.