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

[Jean Paul D]

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. 

 

 

 

[Jean Paul D]

2 minutes ago, JoshM said:

 

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?

on-the-fly. By the attached recipe