And the winner is: 2001 Rhino edition. Rhino's CD releases have been getting louder over the years - generally not even in the same universe of loudness as the current industry average, but still creeping ever so slightly upward in volume year after year. That said, the difference in level between the Rhino and Rykodisc versions of this album is only about 1-2 dB depending on the song, based on my own analyses. The Rykodisc fully utilizes the compact disc's available dynamic range, with peaks hitting right at 0 dB, but without any evident dynamic range compression. Some of these peaks do appear to be slightly compressed on the Rhino disc with its slightly higher volume, but the differences are small enough that one generally has to zoom in and compare the waveforms visually to really notice them. The transfer on the Rykodisc release sounded slower to my ears, and I confirmed this to be the case by synchronizing the two versions of "Red Shoes" in an audio editor and measuring a drift of about eight hundredths of a second between the two over the length of the song. If you don't have an ear for pitch, you may not notice the difference in speed, but that and the overall muddier sound of the Rykodisc CD make the Rhino version the winner as far as I'm concerned. The Rhino release is a great value, with the second disc containing all the same bonus tracks as the Rykodisc release plus an additional four, top notch sound quality, and superior liner notes with photographs and song lyrics. The Rykodisc also has song lyrics but skimpier liner notes, and the booklet folds out into a "mini" poster of the cover art.