And the winner is: CD release, with reservations. As the waveforms demonstrate, the extreme brickwalling present on the compact disc is totally absent on the cassette. Even so, listening tests prove that the compact disc version has a brighter sound and better reproduction of higher frequencies than the cassette version has, which is to be expected given the available frequency range of a standard type I cassette tape. We're not talking about an extreme difference here, but the difference is audible, especially on good equipment. Where the cassette version shows itself to be superior is its lack of staticky distortion in the louder, denser passages of music as compared to the CD. Listen to the end of a song such as "Easily" and you'll be able to hear this difference. It's a subjective decision whether the tradeoff of no distortion for some loss of high frequency reproduction is worth it or not, and it ultimately comes down to whether the distortion is enough to bother a particular listener, and even down to the quality of the playback equipment and speakers being used for listening. The CD distortion, though audible, is nowhere near as bad as that on "The Day That Never Comes" from Death Magnetic, or indeed anything at all from Raw Power, each of which is orders of magnitude worse than anything found on Californication.

Regardless of the choice of media format for this album, it goes without saying that the levels on the CD are ridiculous. Why the people responsible for this thought it was a good idea speaks to the mentality that has pervaded the music industry since the mid-1990s through to the present day - that having the loudest album on the block somehow makes yours better than everyone else's. That being said, the compact disc version of Californication still sounds better to my ears than either Death Magnetic or Raw Power, which may or may not be saying much depending on your opinion of those two albums. Audio fidelity isn't everything, but it may be important enough to be a factor in deciding whether tracking down a cassette copy (or even better, an original vinyl copy) of this album is worthwhile if you're a hardcore fan.