Mastering engineer Bob Ludwig offered three versions of the album for approval. Rose and Costanzo selected the version without dynamic-range compression to avoid being involved in the ongoing loudness war. Ludwig wrote: "I was floored when I heard they decided to go with my full dynamics version and the loudness-for-loudness-sake versions be damned ... the fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level."