I haven't tried any of these, but judging from this video, the remastered tracks are too loud and overpower the sound effects. Some of the higher pitched instruments stand out while the rest seem lost in the background and I have to lower the volume to handle those main instruments, which pretty much loses the sound effects altogether. It seems like the remastered tracks might be better to listen to on their own depending on personal preference, but as they are in that video, they don't function as background music and Download 2 already had a good balance between sound effects and bgm.
Of course I may be a bit biased (since I made it), but I disagree 100%. The music was recorded at WAY TO LOW of volume levels. The sound effects overpower the music. I took great care in this project to make sure the the music louder and sound better, but NEVER over power the sound effects. Download 2 is one of my all time favorite games, after the remaster project I actually played through the entire remastered version. Trust me, I know this game and it's sound VERY WELL. As I have cleared the original MANY TIMES. Anyway, I did not hear any sound effects overpowered by the music during my play-through. If this was the case, I would have gone in and fixed it. YouTube does give you a pretty good idea, but it's not perfect. It's been heavily processed. It's not a true 100% representation of the experience.
I understand what you are saying, and I value your opinion BT. But I think Download 2 has some of the worst balance between sound effects and music out of almost any other PCE CD game ever released.
As for listening to the music on it's own. Sure it will sound ok, but If that was my intention, I would have actually mastered the audio at even higher levels. In the case of Download 2, I did still hold back to allow the sound effects to be heard...
Of course, everyone's ears are different and everyone has the right to their own opinion. I, however think this is a perfect balance and must be tried for real before a final opinion can be made.