Grateful Dead 12.31.78 - Closing of Winterland to hit DVD

Hi Rich,

Nah, haven't done that exact comparison BUT i've always come to the conclusion it sounds like you have. IMO, the official CD's are usually substantially superior to the DVD's audio. Sometimes the DVD audio is even inferior to the best boot. My bet is this is on purpose b/c it sure does create the need for us misfits to buy both the CD & DVD!

Whatcha think?,
Jeffrey

 

Just to be clear, Jeffrey, I haven't compared the DVD against the official CDs, but rather against my old bootleg CDs. Given that I prefer my bootleg CDs to the DVD DTS surround mix (is it just familiarity?), I was wondering what folks thought of the "official" CDs.

But that's a comparison I haven't personally made (the "official" CDs vs. the DVD DTS surround mix).

Clear as mud?

 

Hi Rich,

Please don't bring Mud into this or we'll NEVER clear it up!

Seriously, i knew exactly what you were saying but musta lost ya in my post. Lemme try again. Regardless of release, i've always found that the official cd's sonics are superior to the dvd's sonics. Sometimes the dvd's sonics are so relatively weak that i prefer the sound of my boots as you do for this release. I believe that GDP intentionally makes the dvd sonics inferior in order to sell BOTH the official cd and dvd of the same release to fanatics like us!

Are ya w/ me now? If so, whatcha think of my GDP intentional theory?

Have a GREAT weekend,
Jeffrey

 

I gotcha!

And I agree that the official CDs have always sounded better than the DVDs, and that's usually true generally speaking, but especially so for all the other GD-DVD releases (which sound like crap). This one doesn't sound like crap, and it's the first with a DTS track... but it still doesn't sound as good (to my ears) as my bootleg CDs.

So, should the "official" cds sound better than my boots? Probably, but this apparently hasn't always been the case. I've been collecting for a long time, and I have to concede that I don't always "upgrade" my boots to a Dick's Picks that may subsequently come out. And while I've never done a direct comparison, I do recall at least two instances were many folks claimed to prefer the bootlegs to the official discs: namely 9/3/77 and 11/8/69, both of which were the subjects of enormous trees just before these shows were announced as Dick's Picks. In the case of 11/8/69, it was tree'd shortly after Dick's death, when the Powers-That-Be-Clueless (hey, I'm reverting to GDFORUM lingo!) refused to release this show (which was one of Dick's favorites, and one for which he lobbied unsuccessfully for some time).

Wait a minute... I'm not exactly clarifying anything, am I?

 

Hi Rich,

No, we seldom do...... that's part of the fun!

Have a GREAT weekend,
Jeffrey