I asked Michael Cuscuna & Ron McMaster about this and they have no idea what Steve Hoffman was talking about with "The Sidewinder" master tape. According to Ron, the master that Steve "found" is the same one that he's used many times. In fact, when Ron used it a few weeks later to cut an LP, he said the writing on the box was plain as day that it had been used by him & RVG for the previous CD releases.