We had a blind listening test by Cakewalk on this site when Landr was introduced. There were three masters. 
The first was a master made with Landr, the second was  the same track mastered with Cakewalk plug ins. I don't believe we had the Adaptive limiter yet, correct me if I'm wrong. The third master was made in a pro studo. I was under the impression they used expensive hardware for that master.
 
We were asked to guess which master was which. The results were subjective. Many of us guessed correctly which mixes were made by LANDER, Cakewalk and the pro studio. I judged correctly the Pro studio mix. The other two were close in quality so that was more of a challenge, a toss up IMHO. I somehow also guessed which of those was the LANDR mix although it could have probably been judged to be either one. There is a small difference in quality, clarity and punch between a LANDR mix and a mix personalized especially for the material in a pro studio. It isn't like night and day. 
 
I want to make it clear I have nothing against LANDR, however I think it is a wise move not to include it into the new program. I never liked something that has an ongoing fee as a part of my DAW. Gobbler also falls into that category.

My unhappiness with LANDR was not that it had a payment stream I didn't like.  It wasn't that it produced poor results.  It wasn't that it was bloatware or difficult to use.
 
My complaint is that it was opaque.  It provided no useful insights into what changes it was making, and provided no way to make final tweaks to the settings imposed by LANDR.  Take it or leave it.
 
Soon after that, Izotope came out with Ozone 8 that included a wizard to get you close.  After applying the wizard, you can see exactly what Ozone has done, and then you can make any additional adjustments you like.  And that's actually less money than paying for a LANDR (er, uh) stream of payments for a year.
 
My layperson's opinion is that LANDR probably gets a little closer than the Ozone wizard, but the transparency and control of Ozone makes it a no-brainer.  I expect Ozone 9 will take another step toward quickly dialing in a good master.
 
Basically LANDR is a pretty good thing, but way over-priced compared to what you can do with Ozone.  LANDR is maybe worth $50 a year to me, but not if they are going to keep hitting my credit card every month.

cparmerlee
way over-priced compared to what you can do with Ozone.  LANDR is maybe worth $50 a year to me, but not if they are going to keep hitting my credit card every month.

 
I agree with you 100%. That was our belief here at BandLab too (that such a service is not worth that much) and why we made our automated algorithmic is unlimited, free and provide unlimited high-quality downloads too.
 
If you're willing to pay and already experienced enough to be working within a professional DAW context, then get proper software like Ozone and use their wizard, you'll have a lot more long-term opportunity to tweak it further too or pay a professional mastering studio. If you want quick fixes, then why pay for something that is already free on BandLab and sounds better (I'm biased obviously )?
 
Bias aside, we've mastered hundreds of thousands of tracks since we launched our feature and haven't heard any complaints so far  would be happy to hear feedback from you guys though, we have updates coming on that front too.
 

Something along the lines of Master Match by IK Multimedia in T-Racks 5 is pretty useful sometimes. Upload a reference track and it applies compression, EQ, and Limiter. I personally wouldn't use it for my masters, but I was impressed with it. It's not bad at all. It kind of helps me get a quick reference or a direction to go in.
I'll have to try bandlab's mastering and compare a few things.
I think it's a nice service to offer for people who are recording directly with bandlab.
 

I came across a neat bit of iZotope trivia this week... [I was searching for an audio interface and happened to remember Spire... but was promptly crushed to remember it is iOS only, called them and no android version on the horizon, but that is beside the point]... a quote from this page was interesting though "This marks iZotope’s third consecutive year as a NAMM TEC winner for its innovative products. Since 2009, the company has earned 8 award wins and 16 total nominations." The more I read, it seems that some of O8/N2 resides inside that little guy (just sucks it is iOS only).
 
As clarification, I have nothing against LANDR as I have never used it. What I personally took issue with was its deployment (and the pages-long vehement defenses by the powers that were).

mettelus
happened to remember Spire

Thanks for that reference.  I was never aware of that device.
 
I do think there is a lot of hyperbole that is totally out of control here.  I appreciate Mr. Meng's transparency here.  I don't fully understand what Bandlab is trying to do, but none of Mr. Meng's comments strikes me as hype. 
 
The hype I am talking about is when people imply -- or actually state verbatim as Izotope is doing with Spire -- that you can to "studio-level recording" with these products that clearly are far from studio-grade.  Shame on Izotope.  They absolutely know better than that.
 
There is no reason for such hype.  This is a whole different category of product -- a whole different solution area that revolves around the creative process -- capturing song ideas, developing them enough to where others can catch the essence of the song and join in collaboration.  This is what Bandlab is going after.  That's what Momentum was going after.  That's what Spire is going after.  Those products are not identical.  Spire focuses on plug-and-play hardware.  Other tools use the smart phone with composition tools like canned tracks and chord assistants.  And Bandlab seems to be pushing the limits of what you can do with a web-based service.  But all these products are trying to do the same thing: make it easier and faster to capture musical ideas and get them into some kind of presentable form quickly. 
 
That is a fantastic goal, so there is no reason why anybody should hype anything.  The hype I refer to is the implication that this is somehow the same as commercial-quality studio production.  It is not.  It just isn't.  And it never will be no matter how good those tools get.  We will always have the most powerful tools in the studio environment, and the expertise that goes along with those tools.  Nobody is going to push a button on a Spire and churn out a Grammy-winning production.
 
But in the future, many people may win Grammies with songs that started in Spire, Bandlab or some similar tool.  That's the real point, isn't it?  And if somebody can make this really seamless all the way from the capture of the first idea to the final production in the DAW, that sounds like a pretty big deal to me.  And that sounds like what Bandlab is trying to do unless I am completely missing something.

I totally agree with Meng. LANDR shouldn't be installed by default. There's nothing to stop artists from using it in other ways. But many like myself don't need it.

.

LANDR certainly has its place, and the good news is it doesn't need to be integrated into a DAW for those folk who wish to use it.
 
Personally, whilst I'm not a professional mastering engineer (or indeed producer/mixer) I'd still rather have a go at doing it myself.  I'd learn very little just sending my WAV files to a website and having a computer do it for me.

just to remind everybody that these mastering algorithms (online or off) only give an approximation/idea of the results of getting an actual proper real human mastering engineer to do it - but hey, that costs coins, support your local mastering engineer!