I now had the chance to do some sound comparisons between the DVD 2.0 and the old silver MFSL CD.
This is what I did:
I used the title track for the comparison, had a digital rip of the MFSL CD as well as the new DVD.
I converted the old CD to 24/96 to have the same format as the DVD (using 32-bit floating in Adobe Audition). I had to match the volume levels. Increased the MFSL CD by 6 dB (without it hitting 0 dB and then still had to reduce the overall volume on the DVD by 2.5 dB. Then the volume match is about perfect.
I created one 24/96 WAV file using the first minute of the MFSL CD, 2nd minute of the DVD, 3rd minute of the MFSL CD and so on. The two versions also run at almost the same speed, by the end of the song, after more than six minutes of music, I could make out a time difference (starting point lined up perfectly) of about 0.15 seconds (which represents about a 0.04% speed difference which is very small and something many belt driven turntables have a hard time staying within that tolerance band to the perfect 33.33 rpm - that would represent about 33.34 rpm or 33.32 rpm instead of the "perfect" 33.33 rpm).
Then I played this WAV file through my stereo system, using the front USB input on my OPPO 105 and the XLR analog outputs into a dedicated professional headphone amp by LakePeople, then listening via my Sennheiser HD 660 S (I also played back the files via my regular amp and speakers).
My son, who is a musician and has pretty good ears also listened via speakers, and it was very hard to make out the switch of the source, these two versions are really quite close when level matched.
The MFSL CD was just a tiny hair bit brighter, very minimal. Maybe it sounded a tiny bit more coarse (not sure if this is a proper or good term, I mean just a tiny bit more grainy and slightly less refined). But I would say that 95% of people would say they sound the same. These are - in my point of view - very minimal differences, but you know how things are in the audiophile world, a minute difference to one might be considered a leap forward for someone else. But I feel that I have reasonable good ears but also a "down to earth" mentality when it comes to sound quality. But there are certainly limits to what differences I can make out. I would say in most cases I can very easily make out the differences between two masterings created more than 30 years apart.
Anyhow, I am just sharing this here, for what it's worth.
All in all, I think the new mastering of the stereo mix on the DVD is nicely done, I am happy with it.
The sonics of the 5.1. mix are also really nice. This is a high quality recording and mixing by Alan Parsons, so to be expected, I would say.
