Grateful Dead

6/10/73 would be my immediate choice

Box arrived today.
3 scratched discs I’ll be after replacements for but no glue residue.
Scratches don’t show up in photos due to resolution and light probably so hopefully Rhino don’t cause aggravation if they really intend to go through thousands of photos trying to spot damage.
I have worked how this problem was caused.Unlike every other box set I own where the discs fit in cardboard slots without covers the discs come in and out to the side rather than up and down from the top.Because of this they have correctly ascertained that they won’t be as secure so have made the slots slightly smaller.Enough to damage thousands of discs.Idiot design and asI posted at Hoffmans a clear fail in any Industrial Design 101 course.

....Chunky Shrapnel.
Jazz I say!!

I'm slowly making my way through this show by show. Up to the last disc of 6/9/73 so far.

It's hard for me to point to any one show as "the one" from the box. I think Dave L's point in the video about the smaller moments really nails it. Most of the big jams center around combinations of He's Gone, Truckin', The Other One and Eyes, with PITB being a consistent jamming vehicle falling into various set locations. The smaller moments in songs that aren't necessarily jam focused seem to have the extra oomph and to me are the real highlights.

It'll take more time for me to digest and pick out specific moments, but imagine if you've listened through the whole set, it's all good. A nice companion to the PNW 73 (and 74) shows.

That 6/9 Playing is industrial strength. Show is tighttighttight. The He's Gone > Trucking. Eyes > China Doll. Awesome Sugar Mag to close. Best Loose Lucy maybe ever!! Do it!!

Every one of these shows is gold. Great playing. Favorite era. Sound quality is pretty much out of this world crystal.

To be clear I'm an "Iowa" kid, as in 5/13 was my show in the this box and the rest just gravy ; )

The 5/13 jam sequence is always gonna be a top shelf favorite.

But yep - 6/9

Oh, and 5/26 Kezar. and 5/20 Santa Barbara.

Once again the “taper” show was overhyped.
I’ve only listened once so far, but felt though it has several significant moments, it’s overhyped.
Iowa has been the wildcard sleeper, though Kezar stood out too.
But, as I say, only one time through so far…

Through disc 1 of the final show in the box with close headphone or hooked up to the big boy stereo. CDs and ripped.
My first impressions are that each show gets progressively better in terms of performance. I might come up with some specific examples (Disc 2 of 6-10 PLAYING IN THE BAND) Makes sense if you think about the Dead's touring schedule at the time. I might personally go with Iowa over Santa Barbara on account of Jerry's voice, but each show definitely warrants a close headphone listen or better.

P.S. Shout out to the well-placed HC Sunshine tease out of Truckin' on 6-9 (this may be the sleeper show for me as I hadn't ever heard this one)

-edit- Kezar could well have been the standalone show, but 6-10 is a grate choice, nonetheless. I am looking forward to many more spins on these and I am glad the quality check went well for me despite the glue not having been quite dry

VGuy - great HCS on 5/26/73, too. Slight skip at the beginning of this track - hopefully nothing permanent. Bob seems higher in the mix on this show than in the two earlier ones.
Alan - good points all round. Not having a mobile phone I couldn't take photo's of a cd even if I felt inclined to.

....spitting facts.
It's a roll of the dice re GD releases.
Always has been since Rhino entered the picture.

Update.
Rhino have told some people it will be 8 weeks until the solution is communicated.That makes it the end of August.
One of the senior Rhino people has been posting about this issue at Hoffmans.They are definitely aware of it and that the only satisfactory solution is replacement discs not refunds or discounts.Again it costs not much more than nothing to press CDs so if they have to do that it shouldn’t be an issue.Do not accept any solution that doesn’t involve replacement.
One interesting thing that has come out has been discussion about issues of discs that don’t play even though they have no visible damage.This has been occurring haphazardly in Dead releases since about 2020 although never as prevalent as with this release.Rhino changed manufacturing plants in 2019 and have had zero problems with releases by other artists.The only difference they can put it down to is that Jeffrey still uses HDCD for transfer and that affects the coding although these discs aren’t HDCD.People with players where a light comes on when HDCD are still seeing that light.In some totally random unexplainable way that might be affecting playback with some discs on some players.I said might about all of this but Rhino is talking about removing HDCD from the chain in future.
The biggest villain here is the fool that designed this totally disfunctional packaging.Hang in there everyone and don’t give up until you get your replacement discs whenever that might be.
Finally asking for pictures is ridiculous.How does it help people who have visibly perfect discs that just won’t play?Compare with Universal that when there was slight warping on some of the discs of the 8 disc Hard Luck Stories box that only prevented ripping sent out complete replacement sets to everyone who asked for them.Having people analysing photos and then picking out particular discs to send out doesn’t seem that cost effective to me.
Edit-Just checked and the packaging is designed by Masaki Koike who has apparently won a Grammy for this stuff.They might want to return it in shame after they have designed something that has damaged thousands of discs and no doubt will eat into Rhino’s profit margins on this release.