I love the way he demonstrates PBT in the very beginning and counts off 19, demonstrates it, plays it in real time then shrugs and goes 'that's that' at around the 40 second mark. It cracks me up because he's basically going, what's the big deal? I mean, it sounds easy to me but I know better.
And yes, they have done a better job capturing his tone with each album.
To me - as a drummer who is a little more obsessed with the feel and playing for the song...I find it a bit weird that he demonstrates a section of a song then talks you through
what he was thinking mathematically rather than complimenting the music or just playing along with the feel of the section etc. It's always
" this section is in 19 - so I played 3 16th notes in 7 and then 7 32nd notes in 5 " yadda yadda.
Well i think this is how his brain works. Having watched quite a lot of his videos, and the way he approaches improvisation and composition, he's just a very unique person. It's his way of complimenting the music, but he thinks in a very systematic way and is very quick to break down any kind of rhythm in a "binary" way, so to speak.
I think if you notice the way he plays the cymbals you can understand the difference in how he feels the beat, compared to MP for example. It feels like he's putting the notes in a grid. In some songs it works really well, in some others it might feel a bit weird, but that's also because of the non-dynamic production he's had on the DT albums.