Still sounds like it was squeezed out of the sphincter of an armadillo that was being crushed by a speeding semi truck. This comment only refers to the sound quality. Not the music quality.

OK, just wanted to be sure I picked up the right thing. I'm really enjoying the music.

Wasn't Bleeding Armadillo Sphincter the name of Negative Orange's rare CD compilation of outtakes and B-sides?

Yes, and I still haven't been able to get the smell out of my car.

,

Try some tomato juice and vinegar. It worked great when my friend''s golden retriever came across a skunk!

I agree that neither version has a great sound but you might want to be careful what GH III copy you picked up. There are a bunch of down loadable copies of this on Torrent sites and some are just rips directly from the CD, despite their claims.

Somewhere I posted asking for the name of Audacity software that allows you to , among many other things, graphically display a music file to compare things like compression. I wanted to compare my nephews, so called GH III version that sounded exactly the same to me as the CD version.

Audacity displayed them to be all but identical. So from there, we went online and downloaded another copy claiming to be of GH III origin and, this time, the graphs showed considerable difference.

As for audio on the authentic GH III version. I'd have to unscientifically say it sounded improved but I'm still not going to buy the CD or retain the GH II version. I'll stick to my old school Metallica CDs. They still sound crappy, but I like the songs better.

Hmm. Just did that with my copies, and they're not compressed to hell and back, so I guess I must have the real deal. I don't have my CD with me at work, so I can't check that (nor has it ever actually left the case), but I'll have to remember to bring that in and have a look.

I'm still at work so I couldn't post the graphs to compare to yours so I went Googling for examples I saw on TG Daily or Maybe Engadget's sight.

I didn't find them after a quick look but I did find a bit of an interesting article about sound levels, dynamics, guitar hero and what should be the correct level of dynamics for rock music.

It caught my eye because he is trying to debunk people who say Guitar Hero versions are louder while most articles I've read argue the CDs are mixed to be interpreted as louder.

Another interesting item was this quote... Although he starts off describing how dynamics make music more "lively" and "energetic" he then contrasts his statement by saying some compression is required for the rock music genre.

"...the Guitar Hero version isn't perfect - far from it. In actual fact, it's a bit too dynamic for this style of music - rock requires a "wall of sound" effect..."

So, is this yet another sound engineer whose "wall of sound" way of thinking for rock music is killing our high fidelity buzz or is he the smart one who realizes a little bit of battery acid hot pepper sauce is good for the bigger pot?
or
do I just need to go home, have a beer and play some unquestionably well mastered Mark Knopfler.

[Edit]
After mentioning that maybe I should go home for beer, my brain shut down and I forgot the link to the article. Here it is. Not the best article I've read but I thought it might prove interesting with the above question in mind.

Rock requires a Wall of Sound

I'm fine with a wall of sound without the extreme dynamic range of certain pieces of classical music, but I don't think there's any excuse for clipped waveforms.