And the winner is: 1988 original CD release. This was a completely unnecessary remaster. The most immediately noticeable difference between the earlier and later releases is the obvious increase in volume. From there, the main audible difference between the two, when volume levels are matched, is the reduced bass levels in the remaster as compared to the original. The 2016 disc has had some clipping and/or limiting applied to it, but how noticeable this is on volume matched samples depends on the song - it's much less noticeable on "The Four Horsemen," for instance, than it is on "Jump in the Fire." The remaster also somehow sounds "drier" in a way that I'm not able to articulate, but that you'll understand when you listen to it. By contrast, the original seems to have a "fatter," more "meaty" sound to it. It's very hard to decide which sound is the more "correct" one here. I'm naturally inclined to favor the earlier disc, but it's not absolutely clear to me that it is the more accurate reproduction - in this respect, anyway - of the sound of the original master tapes. A standard compact disc from 1988 would likely have been mastered from a production copy rather than directly from the original masters, and this could account for at least some of the audible differences here that aren't due to compression. That being said, the compression is still what it is, and the original has always sounded just fine to my ears; therefore, that is the one I'm going with here.