I bought a whole bunch of Misato Aki singles because I was so impressed with the mixing job for the My-HiME ED single, "Kimi ga Sora datta." Before going into technical stuff, I like the song, particularly the first one. I bet she can do better, though.
Technically, this CD isn't as well mastered as the My-HiME ED single. For one thing, they seem to have normalized it ever-so-slightly too aggressively. It still has a good dynamic range, though. Worse part is that it has a non-linear frequency behavior. Very high frequency is cut off and there's an extra boost between 40 and 80Hz. I believe it was intentional, but intention doesn't make it right.
At around 57 seconds into the track (and repeated places), there's a full power bass note. If you listen to it on a crappy equipment, you'll hear a horrible distortion. If you listen to it on a different kind of crappy equipment that is self-limiting, you'll totally miss that note. If you listen to it on a good equipment, you'll hear a satisfying rumble there. I imagine the intent was to emphasize that rumble. I like the rumble and all, but I don't like the low-frequency cutoff. Just leave it alone and let the <40Hz go at it, too. Of course, if they did that, crappy equipment would distort even more, but who cares? I bet most people with crappy equipment don't even pay for their music anyway, so they're not even "customers." Am I stereotyping? So what? It's my right. It's my page, after all.
Anyway, even with the above noted quirk, it's much better mixed than most other CDs these days, so I'm giving it an extra +.
