I chose "5" (for me it was pretty close to "3" but "5" sounded a tad bit better to my ears that "3")  and good to know that it was a Cakewalk member with a suite of plugs that did that one. Makes me feel good that it could be achieved within Sonar.
 
But so I assume (should be unlikely that a Cakewalk member would have used something other than Sonar and plugs that are not part of Sonar  ).
 
Would like to know for sure what the plugin suites A, B and C are, the order of the plugs within the suites, settings maybe  to actually know whether they were done with what we have (at least covered in Platinum). Bring the details on Cake folks ! Good show 

The eagle has LANDRED... and in third place.
I'm a bit insecure. I was actually concerned  there was a  chance the robot had better ears. I should have known better. If #3 had been LANDR , I would have had to reconsider my approach.
 
I think the Cake team did very well with their own secret sauce! Congrats!

Hi Joey. I wonder if it would be possible to do a master with Landr using the "high" setting. It would be interesting, I think, to hear that to compare with all the others. I'd also be interested in hearing them with matching levels even though it is no longer a blind test, it would be interesting, at least to me.
Thanks,
Julien

Starise
The eagle has LANDRED... and in third place.
I'm a bit insecure. I was actually concerned  there was a  chance the robot had better ears. I should have known better. If #3 had been LANDR , I would have had to reconsider my approach.
 
I think the Cake team did very well with their own secret sauce! Congrats!

It was actually Jimmy Landry who did the mastering taste test. 

Glad that I found 3 best. Somehow reassuring that my judgement is fine.
I only listened to portions of the song.
I wrote off 2 immediately and was sure it was LANDR. Not a human unless it was the same bloke that remastered "The Four Horsemen" on Soundcloud.

OK guys can we still pick a winner after a winner is picked? C'mon...you know now.  
 
Andrew I wondered if this was a LANDR initiated idea, mainly because the LANDR emblem is on the tracks. Cake had a hand in a few tracks. I think they did a nice job.Thanks.

This was fun, and I appreciate the Cakewalk staff doing it,  I hope more will follow.  What impressed me were the different reasons that people gave for their choice.  Most were well thought-out.  Thanks to everyone who posted.

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]

Starise
The eagle has LANDRED... and in third place.
I'm a bit insecure. I was actually concerned  there was a  chance the robot had better ears. I should have known better. If #3 had been LANDR , I would have had to reconsider my approach.
 
I think the Cake team did very well with their own secret sauce! Congrats!

It was actually Jimmy Landry who did the mastering taste test. 

Any chance of finding out what mastering suite was used on #5 by Jimmy? Would love to know.
The blind test was a great idea with more than a few surprised LandR voters I'm sure!

stevec

konradh
As I said above, I had voted online for #3, and the drum sound was one of the main factors.
 
I am surprised there were not more comments about the drums, and the snare in particular (although it is possible I overlooked some).

Yup, that was a big one for me too - the snare had more "snap" in # 3, something I felt was important for the song/genre. 
 

This is the issue I have with modern "mastering".  Had the producer also felt that it was important for the snare to have more "snap" then they would have given it more snap during mixing.   The "mastering" engineer has taken it on himself to make an artistic decision that changes the way the track sounds.  To me, that is wrong.
 
It's the difference between cleaning an old painting to let the original colours shine through or saying "It would look better if... " and getting out your paint pots.

A fun test to do, and a very pleasant song to listen to.
It wasn't 'objective' nor had criteria other than 'favorite' or 'best' (IIRC)
#3 seemed the obvious choice for 'the market' - it was the clearest of all the 'loud' versions. Though it did bring an image of a face pressed as close to the window as possible. They certainly met the current market needs/demands.
 
Karyn has a point about artistic decisions - the gap between the original and the Pro are significant. Though IMO the mastering engineer may well be under instruction from whoever is paying the bill.
 
The question is raised as to whether the Pro version could be described as the 'best'... answers would be entirely in the realm of opinion - dependent on musical/mixing/mastering preferences, age group, income expectation etc etc (ad infinitum)
 
I actually went for #4. Yes it was quieter, weaker in overall oomph! (easily turned up) But there was a pleasant overall balance between the backing and the vocals - and I could hear what was being sung much more clearly. And there was a lot of words to listen to.
 
Thanks Cakewalk for an interesting exercise.