Donald Fagen - Nightfly Best Cd Version?

I'm not sure what CD-V you're looking at, but it sure as heck isn't the same as mine. Mine has New Frontier (7" mix), obviously NOT the same as the LP version, Maxine (LP version), and the New Fronteir video.

 

I meant the mix & sound quality was the same. The 45 mix is just an edit, not a remix.

 

OK. Was there a single mix for I.G.Y.? That was my favorite song back in 1982!

 

I have the CD from way back in the 80s. Would it be one of the better versions of "The Nightfly"?

 

Doubtful, and it was WORSE, not better. That's why Stevie Wonder bitched about it. Otherwise, there is only ONE CD version of this.

 

I have the vinyl, the original US (from the digital master) cd and the DVD-A and the only one with appreciable low-frequency action is the DVD-A. Even that one seems to benefit from a nudge in the bass. though. I'll bet you a box of donuts it was a mixing decision or poor studio monitors that resulted in this disk being so bass-shy.

Oh, I do usually play the DVD-A. Scheiner did a good job.

 

Another question: If The Nightfly was 16-bit, 48kHz, PCM from recording to mixing to mastering, how in the world could DVD-A benefit the recording? There is no analog tape to reconvert to higher resolution. All you would be doing for the new DVD-A release is sample rate converting and adding dither for additional bit-depth, right? You could not get any extra resolution because that choice was made when the original digital tapes were recorded.

Granted, because the 48kHz source has not been downsampled to to 44.1 kHz for CD, so you will get some benefit. However, I doubt there will be any benefit to the high resolution DVD-A tracks vis a vis the regular 16-bit/96kHz DVD tracks. I listen to it on my DVD/SACD player using the DVD audio tracks (not the high resolution DVD-A tracks) and it does sound better than the CD. However, i doubt the DVD-A tracks offer any improvement over the DVD tracks. They can't, due to the sample rate and bit-depth limitations of the source. In fact, I'd bet the DVD-A tracks sound WORSE, due to the sample rate conversion and dither.

Of course, the digital tapes could be "massaged" in various ways, with EQ choices, and who knows what, but it's not like analogue, where you can eek out more resolution with a higher sample rate and increased bit depth, or a more accurate conversion method and algorhythm. I would imaging these same "massaging" techniques would have been used by Scheiner on both the DVD and DVD-A tracks.

If you disagree with the above, please enlighten me as to how, with this particular source material, the DVD-A could sound better than the DVD.

And no, I'm not a recording engineer, just a lawyer with a day off (and thus, too much time on his hands.) Thanks.

 

My first introduction to this album was the US disc, and to tell you the truth, I was actually quite dissapointed with the lack of bass... so then I picked up a bargin bin Lp and made a needle drop... sounds great thru tubes, but to my ears sounds even brighter and less bass then the US disc.

So when I first heard the target (mine's made in Japan) I was quite surprised with how much better the bass is presented...I agree with Keith... the Target sounds way better then the standard US issue CD... a more defined, punchier low end. The US issue is definately lacking bass, and sounds just sounds wrong on a 'bright' playback system. If you have the opportunity, compare track 6 'The Nightfly' and listen to differences between the US pressing and the Target. I know you'll hear it.

By the way, the DVD-A is spectacular!

 

Is there a possibility to find out which CD one has from the catalog no. or the "stamper" on the CD itself? I know I have a very old target pressing, bought in the early 80's, but still there is an additional US cat. no. on it: 23696-2 (Europe: 92-3696-2). Stamper says 7599 23696-2 2893 021 02. I had the original vinyl album (German pressing), but there was an atrocious distortion on the "synth blues harp" solo in I.G.Y., so I was (and am) pretty happy with my CD...

 

My target CD was manufactured in Japan and it remained a reference disc until I got the DVD-A. The differences between the 2 are very subtle with the DVD-A getting the nod for superiority.

 

The DVD-A for both this and Kamakiriad are at the original 48, so they were not upsampled. You hear the master as it was recorded. The DVD-A is as close to the master in terms of sound as you will get, and it has all the resolution. DVD-A is not a mandatory 96/192 format.

The DVD-A is uncompressed with enhanced resolution/MLP, whereas DTS and Dolby are lossy.

YMMV, but the advanced resolution of the Nightfly is superb.

 

OK, that is maybe where the difference would lie--IF the stereo mix on the DVD is Dolby AC3 2.0, it would be compressed. HOWEVER, the stereo is PCM! THAT STEREO PCM TRACK IS NOT COMPRESSED!

Therefore, there cannot be a difference between the 48kHz PCM DVD stereo audio track and the so-called "high resolution" DVD-A stereo track!

Do you see where I'm coming from? If you have any other information to enlighten me as why I'm wrong, please let me know. Thanks!

 

Actually, that statement is not completely correct. Meridian Lossless Packing is a compression scheme and "advanced resolution" DVD-A tracks ARE compressed. However, it is (obviously) a lossless compression scheme, and all information present on the digital master is restored when it is read off the DVD-A disc using an algorythm for the actual compression and also another algorythm for encoding error correction, probably similar in certain ways to SHN, FLAC, and Apple Lossless schemes you can use on your PC.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that The Nightfly was recorded on a 3M 16bit/50kHz machine, not at 16/48.

 

Your are right!

Roger Nichols, on his website www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_2001_08.html , says:

3M Digital Mastering System
The Ry Cooder Bop Till You Drop album was the first digitally recorded pop album. It was recorded on the 3M 32-track digital recorder at Amigo studios in North Hollywood California. We booked the Village Recorder in 1981 to cut tracks for Nightfly and decided to try the 3M digital machine. We ran a Studer A-80 24-track analog machine in parallel with the 3M for the test. After the band laid down a take we performed an a-b-c listening test. The analog and digital machines were played back in sync while the band played along live. We could compare the analog machine, the digital machine, and the live band. The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital machine. We re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was the clear winner. We rolled the Studer out into the street, (just kidding) and did the rest of the recording on the 3M 32-track machine. When it came time to mix, we mixed to the 3M 4-track machine.


The 3M 32-track used 1” digital tape and the 4-track used 1/2” digital tape. They both ran at 45 ips. I guess 3M wanted to sell you lots of tape. The digital audio was recorded at 50kHz 16bits. There were no 16bit converters in 1981, so the 3M system used a 12 bit Burr-Brown converter and 4bits of an 8bit converter as gain-ranging to produce the 16bit results. The “brick wall” analog filters on the 3M machine hand-wound coils and took up most of a circuit board. They sounded good.
The biggest drawback to the 3M system was the minimal error correction. After a couple of months working on the same piece of tape, the error count started to rise above the correctable level. There were adjustments on the front of the machine to fine tune the decoding of the data recorded on tape. You could adjust each track for the least amount of correctable errors and then transfer the tape digitally to another 3M machine. You now had a clean error-free tape to work on for a couple of months.

 

Has anyone ever compared the Japan Target vs the West German Target of this disc? I own the West German one, but recently saw the Japan target.....

Are they clones?

 

I now have them both and will try to do an A/B in the near future.

 

I bought the West German target a few months ago.

IMHO, it sounds EXACTLY the same as my US pressing from 1988.

I think the CD sounds pretty good. The album is supposed to have a cold, sterile, digital sound, with lightweight bass. It is not harsh or distorted, it's just not warm. Listen to the original LP release from 1982--it sounds very similar to the CD, at least in terms of tonality.

IMHO, the vinyl sounds better, due to a tiny hint of analog warmth that the CD is utterly devoid of.

This is one album that really benefits from playback through a tube-based system, that's for sure.

I don't want to leave anyone with the wrong impression--The Nightfly is one of my favorite albums of all time. In fact, it is probably tied with Abbey Road for that honor.

 

They released a Dual-Disc of this title and didn't bother to remaster it?

 

It was a test release and was never released to the general public (unlike American Beauty). The 2.0 on the DVD-A side IS remastered & is the best available version of the stereo mix.

 

I very much like the sound of the target CDs, but the stereo DVD-Audio track is outstanding. I've never heard The Nightly on vinyl, but I need to.

 

Awhile back a bunch of us were bugging Marshall over at Audio Fidelity for this title.

Any progress?

 

Why would he waste his time on an LP that ALREADY has a phenomenal hi-rez release out there, when there is so much other material out there that doesn't? What exactly is your problem with the DVD-A anyway, and what could Steve possibly do to improve it?

 

The DVD-A stereo totally blows the CDs I've heard away (the 2 CDs I've compared it to are early US and EU pressings).

I ceratinly can't imagine it sounding much better.

 

You don't like DVD-A? Which DVD-A's have you heard?

Obviously, like any other digital format they're only as good as the source and mastering; consequently, some aren't very good.

But the ones that are(Workingmans Dead, Hotel California, Harvest) just to name a few, are magnificent.