I was just wondering what year yall think has the best recordings our there for shows, and within that year what tour came away with the best recordings. To fit everything in I left off post-hiatus, 96, and did a pre-93. I feel like post-hiatus does not really matter due to livephish, and I have yet to hear a decent 96 recording, from the fall anyway, so I left that out also.
In my collection the best quality tapes I have are from 94, and 98. I think will have to pick 94 for first place though. I would say 97 and 95 come in second, and 99, and 00 and 96 are the worst of the shows I have.
I just picked up 11-24-96, and while I love the show the quality of the tape just sucks. It is almost unlistenable. That inspired this poll tonight. Phish should just release some more soundboards I am tired of shitty quality. I am defanitly a tone snob.
There’s a way to get more options for a poll. I think you have to click something.??
I chose 1997 for a simple reason.
The European shows all sound amazing.
1994 seemed good…I think you could have access to the soundboard then!
I actually haven’t heard much 1996, so I can’t pass the best judgement - surely there must be SOME good recordings out there!?
Yeah, I am sure there must be a few decent fall 96 recordings out there, I just have not been lucky enough to come by them.
I’d say 93. Seems like the few 93 shows I have are either soundboard or stupefyingly good audience tapes.
I was under the impression that this was for audience recordings, not straight SBD, or SBD feeds.
Of course if we are including all the circulating SBD sources, pre-93 is going to take the cake.
If we are just considering audience tapes, I think I can throw a few years out right away. I’ve heard some dismal recordings in '99 and especially '00. So in my mind, it definitely has to be a year between… 94-98. '94 still has a lot of SBDs floating around, so I would take that year out, and I have been dissapointed by a lot of '98.
So I am still sticking with '97… I love everyone of my recordings, except for 12/06. Damn you 12/06!
^
Yeah, although I love '99 and especially '00…there are some CRAPPY AUDS.
If we’re speaking strictly of audience recordings, which I assume we are, I would say…'95-'96.
Here’s a question: Is an amazing AUD better than a LivePhish Sounboard?
I’d have to say yes, I feel a lot of the intensity of the music is lost if we remove both the ambience of the room and the crowd noise: listening to the faithful roar when Terrapin starts up on 8/9/98 just wouldn’t be the same…
What’s even better than a great AUD is, no not a matrix, but an ‘audience recording’ with a Shoepes or something done on stage just like Pearl Jam have done throughout this tour…
This is a fair questions. My answer is no. The audience is an integral part of the live Phish experience, but for me, the ultimate goal is hearing Phish as cleanly and loudly as possible. It’s about the music.
As for the 8/9/98 “Terrapin Station” encore…you’re right…that is the exception to the rule. Another exception, to me, is the crowd reaction during segues…(6/29/00 “Drowned->Rock and Roll,” 7-22-97 “DWD->Mike’s Song”).
The original post definately never said anything about AUD or SBD, s pre-93 is the answer you are looking for, in particualr 1992. People were still allowed to patch into the soundboard at this point and that made for some UNBEATABLE recordings. Listen to any show from Spring '92 and try to find me a bad recording. The tapers were hitting their stride right around then and then the rug got pulled out from under them.
There are a few/couple of good recordings from every year after that, but '92 absolutely takes the cake as the year with the most good recordings…I don’t have an even subpar recording from that whole year. And musically it is better than most taboot.
You know…I think the problem here is that very few of us on this board spend much time listening to anything pre-93 and that’s why it gets lumped together in one category like this. But '92 is just as different from '91 is just as different from '89 as '93 is different from '94…I just don’t get why no one sees this.
^ I hear ya man.
92 to me is a lot different than 89-91, in terms of the sound of the band and quality of recordings. All of my shows from 1992 are clear recordings. I had some burning problems resulting in small “bumps” on the cds, but the sound without those bumps is pretty much crystal clear.
On the other hand, most auds I have from 89, 90 and 91 are more distant sounding and fuzzy. Most of them are still listenable, but 92 is my favorite early phish to listen to.
1993 is a landmark year of such change for the band’s live shows that I categorize “early” phish as pre-1993. The post-1993 period is ultimately when the band became really good in my eyes, so that’s what I listen to the most. I still like listening to early shows sometimes, though.
I chose 93 because Page got the Grand Piano, plenty of shows and lots of digi Soundboard patches. 
I’m just getting a great vibe from '93.
That’s the year I first got into; the tapes sounds sooo fresh.
i’ve been on a 92 kick all this week for the fact that the recordings are all so pristine, and the setlist give me wetdreams
plus the fury they play with in March, April, and May is astonishing
i just realized that in ten years of listening to phish, i’ve really hardly heard anything…
the vast majority of my listening comprises of a little 96, and a lot of 97 and 98. anything other than that is just a little bit here and there. flog me?