Hopefully in their live performances the bottom end will be brought up. I've seen them 3X and when they played their older stuff, pre Justice, the lower end was very present.
IMHO they need to re-record/remaster their first 3 albums.
Greg, I know exactly what you mean by the clipping sound. A band like that has balls and aren't afraid to use them. I just don't know why they didn't in this case.
INFO TIME: I live and grew up in Lafayette, IN- home of GN'R front man Axle Rose. My mom's friends w/his Step-dad and I know a guy (the one that tought me how to play the drums) Jeff, he played the drums in one of Axles first "porch" bands, not garage

, but he knows Kirk from Metallica from that GUNS N' Metallica tour 12 yrs ago.
IF, that's a big IF, I can get ahold of Jeff, I'll ask if he can ask Hammett about a re-record.
"ZPA's will have the same sound essentially as you get from the MS, they just feature a bigger shinier set of balls."
Install:
http://phoenixphorum.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16998