Best Live Phish CDs

slipknot, was there a particular source for oswego that you had in mind? i have the FOB schoeps that's going around and its not great. i now see that there's a U89i for the 18th which probably deserves a listen.

Dewinkle, i shy away from the official releases because, to me, they don't sound the way the actual concerts sounded. too sterile or something, not to mention the cost involved in buying all of them.

if you wouldn't mind checking out some audience recordings, you must get Big Cypress (NYE 1999>2000). the neumann u89 of both days and the schoeps of 10-30-99 are so sweet sounding. The music was out of this world, too.

dewinkle,

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slipknot, i agree totally about the schoeps recordings. why is that? sure, some sound great, but i've heard great recordings done with just about every combination of gear! i have also heard horrible recordings done with every combination of gear! there are just too many variables to say that this piece of gear will always produce great tapes.

getting many different sources is definitely the way to go. its bittersweet, though. after the hiatus i was dedicated to getting damn near every source of every show that was available. i was hooking up to the torrents, setting up snail mail trades, ftp trades, etc. in a sick effort to seek out the best recordings of every show.

then, after i had 3 or 4 different sources, i would do the listening tests. it was often very difficult to pick out the best one. its easy to throw out the obvious worst one but after that its another story. some very different sources would sound almost identical. what a pain in the @$$!

It was almost like another full time job. I do not miss that ritual at all, and for that i'm grateful that they're done!