October 23/24, 1970
SB 5
Geetarz Comments:
This nicely packaged 3CD set on the Slunky label contains the complete Fillmore concerts.
Slunky took the time and trouble to do some audio remastering of the original master tapes ... which is a mixed blessing, because although they were able to clean up a good deal of the hiss apparent on earlier releases, this left its imprint in a noticeable amount of high end artifacts, leaving this release sonically inferior to the earlier issues.
Those with keen hearing would be well advised to stick with the non-remastered versions of these shows such as the excellent Tarantura release.
To fully review, the original Tarantura release is directly from the master tapes, with no EQ or sweetening. If you want the "straight recording", the Tarantura release is the way to go, and a personal favorite.
The later Mid Valley release is a remaster of the Tarantura release. In recent years, Mid Valley has gotten a little heavy handed with remastering, but for the Fillmore shows they really did exercise a deft touch, bringing the levels up to maximum without any compression or clipping, some light sweetening and noise reduction that really makes the recordings richer and fuller. In other words, the Mid Valley release is about as good as a remaster will be without going overboard.
This Slunky release takes the remastering to the next level, runs a bit hotter, which of course kills the dynamics a little and reduces the hiss but also steps on the high end a bit.
The Paddington release hasn't been compared directly to the others, so won't factor into this review.