Article: The Best Version Of... Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly

[Josh Mound]

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[Josh Mound]

I just cleaned up a few missing italicizations of album titles. Please let me know if anyone notices any other errors.

[Josh Mound]

23 hours ago, loop7 said:

Fantastic piece. These long-form articles on albums are gold.

 

So, I've only listened to The Nightfly about 150 times, most of those were the original US retail LP and then the original US retail CD. I no longer have the LP but I recall it sounding great.

 

In one of Michael Fremer's rants about the terrible-ness of compact discs, he remarked how Porcaro's drums on the album don't sound like drums (because digital recording was so flawed). I regret hearing Fremer say this because I tend to now agree the drums and cymbals don't sound all that great to my ears. I don't own a turntable so maybe I should steer clear of Fremer altogether.

 

I love this album and always will.

 

It's odd that Fremer would blame CDs for the drum sound, since Wendel is really what shaped it. Listening to Wendel tracks on Gaucho, it's the same sound (arguably more digital, since I believe Nichols updated Wendel between Gaucho and The Nightfly).

 

In contrast to Fremer, I agree with the contemporary CD marketers and hifi magazine writers who pointed to The Nightfly as an endorsement of the potential of CDs. Lots of early CDs were sourced from improper tapes, as Nichols himself wrote about in an 1983 article. So even The Nightfly's erroneous first CD issue tended to sound better than some other early CDs made from tape copies EQ'd for vinyl. Plus it's sound floor was almost nonexistent thanks to the digital recording.

 

 

17 hours ago, scintilla said:

Whatever misgivings I have had over the years with this site and Chris, both have continually surprised me with growth and evolution: Chris has become a pretty good columnist and trusted voice in the HiFi world.  The site has continued to improve in content quality and now, with this series I think has eclipsed print journals.  Nobody at Stereophile ever went in this deep, with such heart and so well.  Richard Lenhert never did this.  Michael Fremer never did this.  And here it is, for free on a website where a select group of audiophiles have found a place to commiserate and share the deep, neurotic impulses of music lovers that also want the definitive version of their favorite recordings without apology. Thank you Chris and Josh.  You have filled the cup and it runneth over...

 

I can't tell you how much I appreciate this comment, @scintilla. Thank you for the kind words.

 

[Josh Mound]

Since this site has taken the brave stance of shining a spotlight on MQA, it's worth my mentioning that this article is very wrong about MQA and The Nightfly. The MQA version he listens to is just an MQA-encoded version of the 24/48 release, and both the Redbook streaming version and the 24/88.2 version (which I presume is just a rip of the SACD's hi-res layer) he compares it to are different masterings. So any differences are not attributable to MQA, and in my listening the plain old PCM version of the 24/48 master sounded better than the MQA version even when fully unfolded with my Matrix XSP DAC.

[Josh Mound]

3 minutes ago, Jean Paul D said:

thank you. I quickly compared 5 versions of the title track, 2 of which are not included here.

 

To my ears on my system :

 

original CD (Target actually) sounds a bit hollow, old CD, everything I ever hated about CD

 

but the Limited pressing on Quiex II Promotional copy LP isn't great either with nothing of the thump you can get from a magical compression of bass/drums on vinyl. Could easily be judged as CD/digital version in a blind test I think.

 

SACD layer is pretty much OK and not sure I could blind test distinguish it from the 24/48/2. I think I'd pick the 24/48/2 for I perceived (but just gave each iteration one shot) more of reverb/echo, frank attacks when listening to it.

 

That's the reason why I come to reconsider, thanks to your work, my go to version which is 24/48/Mch mixdowned to stereo via HQP matrix. The bass and drums have much much more body and meat but then the subtleties of the mix, layerings, phasing effects, reverb, echoes, trails and THUS how digital pushed advantages in that album gets quite a bit lost. 

 

 

 

 

I've never tried folding down the 5.1 mix to stereo. Does HQP do that on-the-fly when playing the 5.1 files, or do you do a conversion beforehand?

[Josh Mound]

19 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

@JoshMThis isn't just a great piece, but a masterpiece on this fantastic album that I first bought as a youth. It is and always will be an all-time favorite.

 

My first copy was the original vinyl, now long gone, then the CD which I should still have somewhere (and am now curious to check if it's the digital or analog tape sourced version), followed by both the DVD-Audio, and then the Trilogy DVD/CD box set.

 

I did not know there was a Japanese SACD reissue, I'll probably have to find that on eBay just to complete the set!

 

Thank you so much for the kinds words!

[Josh Mound]

On 4/29/2021 at 10:29 PM, KDinsmore said:

Man I LOVE these comparo's. I wish we had one a month.

 

Thank you. Back in the day, I thought I'd be writing one once every few weeks. But the amount of work I put into each has gone up since then. I look at it as a question of value added. There are lots of articles about The Nightfly out there. I want to write something that will be close to the definitive account of every album I tackle.

 

For me to write them once every few weeks, I'd need to turn it into my real job, which would probably involve Chris helping me spin TBVO off into a freestanding site like SuperDeluxeEdition. That's enticing, but I'm not sure if I'd want to do that for a few reasons. The first its that turning anything into your main gig risks ruining the fun. The second is that a site like that would have to survive on advertising from labels, and I'm not sure how that might impact my ability to be honest about what's actually the best version of an album. The labels would always want me to recommend the newest version. Yes, AS has advertising. But it's a pretty diverse portfolio of gear and services. For example, Qobuz doesn't worry about specific version of albums. They just want listeners. I have no compunction about mentioning Qobuz as a source for a streaming version of an album because I actually use Qobuz and think it's the best streaming service. However, that doesn't stop me from recommending a version that isn't streaming at all. In contrast, I don't know if my willingness to recommend OOP CDs would endear me to labels trying to promote the latest big box set, which might not actually be the best sounding version. 

 

So, while I don't see TBVOs coming every few weeks, or even every month, anytime soon, I do hope and expect that by the end of this year they'll be coming out closer to every two months. The past year has been very, very busy, but my life will mercifully slow down by Xmas of '21.

 

I put a lot of heart and soul into each TBVO, and I enjoy every minute of it. So as soon as I have more minutes available, it's going to mean more TBVOs. 

[Josh Mound]

16 hours ago, CharlesN said:

The best piece of writing about a single album that I've ever read, period, full stop. Astonishing work and research, Josh. The bar is set high for exhaustive analysis when it comes to TBVO features, but you've exceeded even that high bar here--the equivalent of a doctoral thesis on The Nightfly. 

 

I've owned Nightfly on digital disc since the CD was first released and, over the years, have collected every digital release except for the destroyed first mastering and the streaming releases. The 24/48 has ended up my fave, with the high rez layer on the SACD a close second. You're right to point out that the original CD (mastering #2) can be fatiguing and that's my main issue with it--I can't remember the last time I listened to it all the way through. It has a reputation as an audiophile classic, no doubt, but I'd argue that it's real claim to fame was as an audiophile demo disc, which is a subtly different thing. It's great for audio showboating a song or two or three to wow friends or high-end audio shoppers. But sometimes sound that wows you immediately doesn't hold up so well over the course of an entire album, and I definitely get "wow fatigue" from the original CD.

 

On a final note: this level of quality in writing deserves to be supported financially, at least on a voluntary basis, and I'd welcome a donation option for readers of TBVO. This is content that's worth paying for! 

 

 

Thank you so much, Charles. Comments like this mean the world to me. 

[Josh Mound]

16 hours ago, Michel André Jouveaux said:

Fantastic article. Thank you. 

I own the 2007 "MVI" Box set with all three Fagen solo albums published at that time. Do you reckon the DVD side of those is the same 24/48 mastering you refer to here ? (It does sound fantastic, although I still go back to my German vinyl copy for The Nightfly).

 

 

Hi Michael, Yes. The MVI box is what I refer to as The Nightfly Trilogy box in the article. The CD in that box has Mastering 2 (the digital-sourced original CD), and the DVD in that box has Mastering 3 (the 2002 24/48 file). That box is my favorite Fagen release because you get it all!

[Josh Mound]

On 10/5/2021 at 6:10 PM, PeterG said:

THIS JUST IN!!!  Listening now for the first time, with Steely Dan Northeast Corridor teed up right behind it.  Must haves for those who still haven't lost that number...

 

https://www.amazon.com/Donald-Fagens-Nightfly-Live-Fagen/dp/B099TLRGWS

 

This is an awesome release. Fagen is in fine voice. 

 

Fagen's said that he's written a bunch of new material during lockdown, apparently for a new solo release. I hope that happens so and that he tours as a solo act behind it. Nothing against "The Steely Dan Band," but especially without Becker, I'd love to hear more of Fagen's solo material live.

[Josh Mound]

A great Fagen quote about "I.G.Y." from a new Variety interview:

 

"With something like “IGY,” some people think it’s a benign album about what a great future we’re going to have, but that’s not the way I wrote it. [Laughs.] It was supposed to be funny. And I was hoping that the disappointment that a kid would feel… It’s about, as a kid, the way we saw the future, and what we were fed by the media and government institutions about how great things are going to be and how technology was going to make life easy and save the world, and how things really turned out, and the dark side of technology. That’s really what it was about."

 

 

[Josh Mound]

For those interested, I just posted an update that (I think) provides some clarity on the SACD. The update will change how I do Har-Bal graphs in the future, but it doesn't impact the TBVO's recommendation.

[Josh Mound]

I've now expanded the update with some visuals and further explanation. 

[Josh Mound]

7 hours ago, mikey8811 said:

@JoshM OK I am a little confused here.

 

I have 2 versions of Nightfly both of which I ripped and no longer have the CD's. One is the Japanese Target which I found drier and more hi fi sounding - the instrumental separation was impressive. The other is a rip from a German manufactured CD. The code at the back cover which I scanned says 923696-2. I no longer have the disc to look at the matrix. The separation of instruments is not so precise on this but it had fuller mids and more bass. Would this be the one from the inferior analogue tape? Or could it be the same master but given the manufacturing differences in the Japanese Target and this German one, they ended up sounding different? Ultimately, in my system I preferred this.

 

Thanks

Hi Mikey, that’s definitely possible. Could you put a few lossless samples up on Google Drive or similar and send me the link in DMs? I’ll take a look at both in Har-Bal and MusicScope.

[Josh Mound]

5 minutes ago, regnaD kciN said:

I'm going to make it a little more confusing.  I've got the West German Target ripped to hard drive -- unfortunately, the disc itself is in storage, so I can't check the matrix, but I have checked it against the Japan Target that you mention as being one of many from the digital master.  Both of them have identical DR figures that differ from both the tape-sourced and digital-sourced CDs you give above.

 

I.G.Y. 3.7/15

Green Flower Street 7.1/16

Ruby Baby 8.4/14

Maxine 6.6/15

New Frontier 6.1/15

The Nightfly 4.1/17

The Goodbye Look 6.4/16

Walk Between Raindrops 5.1/18

 

Not too sure what to make of this one.

 

Depending on the software, calculations of the DR can be off by .1 or so, but I’d like to double check to be sure. Could you DM me a link to a song or two from your copy? I’ll let you know what I find.