Grateful Dead: Mars Hotel LP recording

I have a beat up MoFI copy of Mars Hotel. I find the image a little lacking but soundstage is not bad at all. I actually enjoyed it more than I remembered. It has that dark slightly warm sound a lot of MoFi I have listed to do. I don't love MoFi. Many times if you have a good old copy the older one sounds better, but with some of the used prices these days the clean MoFI copy and sturdy sleeve are better than beat up 20 dollar copy of the original. 

I own all of the MoFi issues of Dead LPs and have not been impressed by most of them.  MoFi in general has never blown me away.  Very hit or miss in my experience.

I don't have the MFSL Mars Hotel, but I do have an original pressing. I'll have to pull it off the shelf and see how that pressing sounds.

My MoFi Mars Hotel sounds just like yours, fjn04. I always thought I got a bad pressing, but apparently not.

Indeed- Steely Dan have such great sounding LP's, but something went wrong w/ KL. Scarlet Begonia's, China Doll, Unbroken Chain…. Mars Hotel is such great music. Oh well. Have to hand it to The Dead, they made some great sounding LP's. Oh- And that music (-: Cheers -Don

Yes, Mars Hotel is the equivalent to Katy Lied, great music but a bit lacking in sound. 

It is flat sounding, and acking in frequency extremes. Too bad cause there's some good music on there. Unbroken Chain for one.

I was in a group of about 5-6 guys at a friends house, and we did an American Beauty shootout. It was the Rhino remaster, Original Green label, and the MFSL 45. Unfortunately, we didn't have the Stan Ricker done MoFi 33rpm from a while back. This was a unanimous win for the Original Green label.  It handily beat the Rhino, and in this setup, the Green Label was just more natural sounding, without giving up much to the 45RPM. I would love to do this again, in another setup. I don't take the above as Game Over, but it was very obvious that day, in that system. I'd like to hear another pressing of MARS Hotel. I doubt it's American Beauty level, but would think I could get better. BTW- The Audio Fidelity Shakedown Street LP is excellent. I heard the same about AF Blues for Allah, but haven't heard that one.

I don't have Mars on Mofi, but have several of the newer Mofi series done at 45RPM on their Gain 2 system. Workingman's Dead and American Beauty sound incredibly detailed, rich, dimensional and quiet.  Ditto Miles Davis Filles de Kilimanjaro and Sorcerer.  Mofi's Filles bettered an excellent CBS UK pressing.