Since Amazon has lumped the Elektra CD release of this album i must specify which release i am reviewing. I am reviewing the 2000 24 karat Gold CD edition of Ride the Lightening remastered by Steve Hoffman. This is a Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab release just so people know. I own a few of their Miles Davis LP's remasters which sound amazing. Now back on track i have owned and played the hell out of Ride the Lightening (1995) CD put out by Elektra. While that version sounds good the 2000 Hoffman remaster blows any other CD edition out of the water. The album just has more life organic sound and does not sound harsh or filtered. The source material Mr. Hoffman worked on this release with was the original master tapes of the album. While the 1995 CD edition of RTL does not sound much different from the original vinyl version it did go through digital filtering possibly noise reduction and a few other things.  My reason for buying this version was i had heard Metallica had remastered Ride the Lightening again and were releasing a box set for the album. After hearing the sound on the album in that box had fallen victim to the loudness war i searched for an alternative. Snagging a decently priced copy of this long out of print remaster was luck on my part. All i have to say is if you care about sound stay far away from the RTL (2016 box set) it has nice extras which are tempting but yeah this 2000 MFSL Steve Hoffman remaster is the way to go. Best sounding version of RTL in my humble opinion.