Donald Fagen "The Nightfly" digital recording to MFSL 45 RPM One-Step vinyl?*

Fair enough. Me neither.

 

Id turn that 428 into a 438 just to mess with people

 

Could be!

 

Sorry. I don’t buy much MFSL. I think the last MFSL vinyl I purchased was Meddle back in the late 80’s which I understand is worth a small fortune now. But yeah, I’ve never heard of him.

 

That’s not good! That’s even worse than what I was worried about when I heard RTI was pressing these. I’d get on the horn with MFSL pronto and have a replacement shipped out.

 

Sure, that reference is on the original LP. However, I’m curious as to what source the album was mastered from and that statement doesn’t really clarify the provenance of the source tape. I guess it is possible they could have borrowed one of the extant 16/50 3M digital decks and connected it (via its analog outputs) up to the mastering desk and then to the lathe. I HOPE that’s what they did.

 

Yes. I am amazed I have stuck it out so long.

 

Wow, the last 30 seconds of The Goodbye Look is amazing.

 

Might as well call me an idiot, too. The name "Krieg Wunderlich" meant absolutely nothing to me. In fact, I must be a double idiot because I'm staying clear of this release and standing pat with my wonderful hi-res/multi-channel DVD-A, my RL-cut vinyl and my Warner Bros. CD.

 

This release is on a whole other level.

 

You'll be blown away. I too have the first mofi of this and the RL. They sound nothing like this.

 

Got mine today #1001.

I've been listening to The Nightfly in fairly heavy rotation since 1982 and have owned the RL stock pressing, the original 80's MFSL. target CD, the 12" promo single of The Goodbye Look/New Frontier, the 180 gram Vinyl Revival LP from Germany and the Japan SACD. I must say that this is the best version I've heard yet. There's a nice smooth midrange and finally some much needed bass. One thing that's stood out so far is Fagen's double tracked vocals on Maxine which I'd never really noticed before.

My vinyl on both discs is nice and flat but not without a problem which is a scratch on the title track not unlike one posted in a picture here earlier. Maybe the pressing staff at RTI should do some homework and find what causes problems like these. It seems to play fine but for $100 I expect something a little closer to perfection.

The packaging is superb as is Music Direct's packaging but who knows how much of a hassle it'll be to get one my LP's replaced.

 

I hope so too - but I doubt it. I'm guessing there aren't many people who know how to calibrate those decks anymore now that Roger Nichols is gone. Remember - it wasn't 16 bit - it was 12 bit + 4 bit. You had to match the outputs of the two DACs precisely to get a linear 16 bit output.

My guess is that they're working from the 24 bit/48 kHz stereo master that was prepared a while ago. That's just a guess though. It'd be great if someone still knew how to work those 3M decks - and that the tapes were still playable anymore.

Cheers,
Paul

 

My DVD-Audio blows both away quite handily. If someone drops in and says this is better than the DVD-Audio, I will have to have this

Ed

 

IDIOTS UNITE!....unless it's better than the DVD-Audio. If someone says it is, I double down on my idiocy and will purchase this album.

Ed

 

You could always rip the dvd-a and apply some audiophile friendly EQ/processing.

In theory MOFI is essentially working with the same source that you already have.

 

If you're happy with what you have, don't buy it.

 

If I can be happier with the One Step, I'll get it. I'm just waiting for someone to tell me that they feel it's better than the DVD-Audio. I don't think that's gonna happen...but it could.

Ed

 

Audiophile-friendly EQ? The DVD-Audio disc is audiophile. It sounds phenomenal! Yet again, if by some freak chance, the One Step is better than the DVD-Audio, I'll cop to it and spend my money.

Ed

 

If SOMEONE drops in and says that it's better? It would have to be more like almost EVERYONE for me to believe that! But remember, I'm a double idiot, the total fool that believes that Elliot Scheiner, Bob Ludwig and the others that helped prepare that 2002 DVD-Audio knew exactly what they were doing and were entirely faithful to the original digital master.

 

LOL!!! Okay... I don't know how many have the DVD-A. That is the gold standard to my ears. If people (happy?..LOL) tell me that the One Step is better than the DVD-Audio, I'd be a fool to not check it out given how much I love the album.

Ed

 

If someone can tell me this is better than the DVD-A of Matlock season 3, I’m definitely interested.

 

Okay - I got kind of curious.

So - I don't have the DVD-A of The Nightfly, but I have the MVI of the Nightfly Trilogy. These are basically DVD-Video discs with compressed Dolby Digtial & DTS 5.1 tracks, and uncompressed LPCM stereo tracks.

For The Nightfly - the LPCM tracks are 24 bit/48 kHz. Kamakiriad and Morph The Cat are 24 bit/96 kHz.

It took a bit of doing, but I was able to extract the 24 bit/48 kHz LPCM tracks from the MVI of The Nightfly as 24 bit/48 kHz .WAV files.

I put the .WAV files into Audacity, and took a look at the spectrum. Here it is:





So - apparently there's not much information above 20k. I'm kind of wondering if these are from 16 bit/44.1 kHz masters up-sampled to 24 bit/48 kHz.

Compare these to my Morph The Cat MVI extraction - 24 bit/96 kHz LPCM:

Morph appears to be an analog recording - the blue is broad spectrum tape hiss - extending all the way up to the Nyquist limit of the 96 kHz sample rate. There also appears to be significant audio information from 30 kHz to 35 kHz.

What does this mean? Well - unless The Nightfly DVD-A stereo tracks are from a different master - there's not much information present that isn't present in the CD.

Cheers,
Paul

P.S. If anyone has 24 bit/48 kHz .WAV files extracted from the DVD-A of The Nightfly - I can run you through the Audacity spectrogram procedure. It's really quite easy once you get the hang of it.

P.P.S. Oh yeah - here's the matching CD versions of IGY & Green Flower Street from the Warner CD:

 

Yes, the DVD-A tracks (stereo and 5.1 -same as the SACD) cut-off at around 21kHz despite the masters supposedly being 16/50.
I always wondered why that is. It doesn't change the fact that it sounds awesome.

A similar cut-off would be seen on a needledrop of the MoFi One-Step if the same masters were used.

 

Thanks for checking. I was wondering about that.

No argument there! I always liked the sound of my MVIs. It's nice to know that the stereo tracks are roughly equivalent to the DVD-A, even if the 5.1 tracks have to use Dolby and dts.

That gets to my next question...

Cheers,
Paul