u/Loose-Cake5475

Edit: I was trying to keep the title short, I understand its both remixed and remastered.

I see so much discussion about the 2004 remasters sounding much worse but without discussion of the sound source. When played generically on YT or a streaming source, I fully agree. But when I listen to the original vs a remaster on my Sony disc changer, the differences aren't as negative. When I burn my CDs in FLAC file format and use the Poweramp equalizer app on my phone, its pretty easy to adjust most remastered songs to sound better than the original with the exception being that it doesn't help when rerecorded lyrics are used (Rust in Peace).

Seems at least part of the reason remasters are easy to dislike is because the most common ways people listen now have additional compression that affects the sound quality in a way sound processing and equalizers can't help. For remasters that are brickwalled, streaming, bluetooth, and native smartphone music players will make it worse. If you rip CDs, using standard MP3 format will make it worse.

This is just my take on it, but since I rarely see the source/player/headphones/speakers mentioned, curios what others think.

UPDATE: As of 6/23 at 9:30am pacific time, The System Has Failed and Dystopia are the clear cut favorites with 19 (TSHF) and 18 (Dystopia) mentions. After that, its Endgame (13), United Abominations (10), The Sick/Dying/Dead (7), self titled album (7), World Needs a Hero (5) and Risk (1). Time to get to work adding some new Megadeth to my collection! Appreciate the replies so far and hope to hear more!

Basically, my knowledge of Megadeth's albums is limited after Cryptic Writings. I have the new self titled album and love it. Not there best, but when put in context of being written and performed after hitting 60 y/o and Dave still going after neck fusion and throat cancer, I'm impressed. I've been looking to dive in to some of the years I missed. I've listened to Dystopia and started last night on The Sick/Dying/Dead, so far feels like I missed some good stuff.

I'd appreciate if your answer could include both when you started listening and what is your favorite album from Cryptic Writings or earlier to get an idea of which albums you like most out of their first 7 albums since I'm familiar with those. My top 3 of their first 7 would be a 3 way tie between Peace Sells, SFSGSW, and Rust in Peace, the others aren't far behind.

I regularly see people naming an album as their favorite or the album they feel Black Sabbath were at their peak. I can't do it. I can say one is my favorite while I'm listening to it, but as soon as I listen to another, I think "well actually THIS is the one!" Best I can do is narrow it down to their debut album, Paranoid, Master of Reality, Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and Sabotage. I realize that isn't narrowing it down much, but each album is so damn good I can't put it below anything.

Anybody else not have a clear cut favorite?