Grateful Dead on CD

Good morning everyone !
I was just wondering what you guys think with regards to the Dead on CD ? Are you fans of the Rhino remasters or the original Warner/Arista discs ?

 

the rhino remasters are good and worth it for the bonus material

 

Yeah I have both. I got the Rhino's as they came out. They sound good to me too. When I got them, the originals went in a storage box and up to the attic, so i never really did a comparison . This was in the days when I just assumed remaster meant improved. I know now, of course, that this isn't often the case. I was just wondering if it was worth my while digging out the old discs
Also, what's the opinion of the vinyl available at the moment ?

 

keep the warner/arista Live Dead, get the Rhinos for everything else

 

Wondering if this proposed downgrading of the Rhino Live Dead also apples to the SQ of the Fillmore West 1969 box versions of the same performances?

 

The Rhino Warner brothers years are great in both LP and CD.

 

What's out there on Rhino/Grateful Dead sounds really good. HDCD, too.

 

Any particular reason you rate the original Live Dead over the remaster ?

 

Tower Records here in Dublin has American Beauty and Workingman's Dead on vinyl. The price, €30 each has so far put me off. Thing I may have to spring for them though.

 

The Rhino version has an alternate mix that has Phil's bass guitar mixed extremely loud. The organ is louder than the original mix as well. The guitars are more subtle. I all comes down to personal choice.

 

If you only care about the original album, I would pick the original CDs over the Rhino remasters. While not terrible, the Rhino CDs sound a bit compressed to me. I think the best overall is the HDTracks downloads for the studio albums. Also, the MFSL Silver Mars Hotel is wonderful.

 

Interesting as I don't find the rhinos compressed at all but thats why we all post here. Different takes on music.

 

The remasters need to be HDCD decoded, without decoding they do sound compressed.

 

Excuse my technical ignorance, but how is this done ?

 

You have to have a player (or plugin) that can decode HDCD. My Oppo does, and they sound fantastic. I believe Windows Media decodes HDCD also. IMHO, Rhino did a nice job on those.

 

Aaaah, I see. Thanks. I listen to my CDs thru a Marantz Cd6005. As far as I'm aware, it doesn't decode HDCDs....so I may be better off returning to the originals ?

 

Agreed, the 192-24 HDtracks versions sound very, very good.

 

The remasters do not use peak extension. There is no difference in dynamic range when HDCD decoded.

 

Please do a search here. There are many posts that say that they do use peak extend or at least some of the titles do. Same thing for the Garcia remasters.

 

I own the CDs and have checked them.

A lot of the archival releases use peak extension. The remasters do not.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I have them as well, both sets Dead and Garcia.

Let's see if someone else reading this has anything else to add.

 

I found this info interesting. HDCD w/out peak extend can still benefit from decoding.

Q: Do HDCD encoded discs that don't have any peak limiting when played without decoding benifit when played decoded? In other words does HDCD offer any other benefits other than peak extending?


A: Yes, the HDCD chip has various filter settings which are changed "on the fly" by the HDCD codes. The differences in the filters are designed to maximize performance of different parameters, such as impulse response, frequency response, phase linearity, etc. The HDCD encoding process determines when each filter will provide the best sonic performance and the control codes to select that filter are included in the HDCD data stream.

 

I do not believe this to be the case

 

Does anyone know whether the Download Series or the Road Shows use peak extension?

 

Mix wise the WB and box versions are very true to the original LP, and the Rhino/MFSL version is something VERY different.