they have re-mixed and remastered the new version to the point where it is not the same album as the 1976 original release.

Believe me I listened to this album so many times growing up that my brain is synced to every note on it, and when I heard the "new version" it just was not the same, they have added, taken away, and adjusted it way to much. It is not the same album I listened to hundreds of times with my headphones on as a kid during middle school and high school, and grew to love.

has anybody else noticed the differences?

Of course many have noticed the differences! And it is a long story from what all I have read and if you want to learn the long of it you might check out this skynyrd site: www.skynyrdfrynds.proboards.com . On that site are people who knew Tom Dowd personally and band members and other. Even Ron Eckerman is on that site. And what I have been reading over there goes something like this... when they decided to put out a 25th anniversary edition of the album due to complaints over the mixing by Tom Dowd, surviving original band member Gary Rossington wanted the re-release to sound more like the band did live on stage and so they called up Kevin Elson the band's old soundman to do all the remixing of the album from top to bottom. Tom Dowd was never notified about this situation and he only found out about it after release when someone brought to him a copy of the album. MCA never even bothered to send Tom Dowd a copy of it to listen to, someone else did and asked him about it which is where this story came from.

I don't like what I have heard of it. Which to be fair, is not all of it, but what I have heard it is just not the album I love.

They need to at least make the original mix available for us too.