Which sounds better ?

[MaxD]

We like to talk about our preferences as if they were fixed and immutable, as if we could always reliably say “this is what I like” and as if those preferences wouldn’t change.

I think very few people, if they’re honest with themselves, can say either that their preferences are unchanging or that they can reliably and confidently say what their preferences are.

So while in the end it is all about preferences (what's the point if you don't enjoy it?), it’s very helpful to be able to refer to an objective yardstick (where such a yardstick exists). If for nothing else, an objective yardstick can be useful for keeping us honest about what our preferences are.

Well, I do not agree. Musical tastes. yes, they are a matter of preferencies, then there are few technical points that have to be made clear when we talk about audio formats and quality.

Why people listen to digital music in form of files do use a DAC? Simple: it need the best possible conversion between digital and ANALOG.

Also CD players do have DAC inside: becouse they also need to translate the 0's and 1's to ANALOG

Why this? Becouse the most part of amplifiers are ANALOG equipment and those Digital (class D) also do have internally a DAC to convert digital to ANALOG.

And what about hi-fi speakers? Yes, they are ANALOG and this is the reason becouse we all need all this equipment to translate our modern digital music to ANALOG, becouse our speakers are a ANALOG piece of equipment, so no ANALOG translation, NO music.

Said so, now why a vinyl listening chain composed by a turntable, a pickup (all ANALOG equipment), a stereo amplifier (in class A/B, so ANALOG) and finally a good pair of speakers (ANALOG equipment them too) sound better, undoubtfully better of any digital music IF the source is an ANALOG recording made with an ANALOG BOARD on an ANALOG tape? I don't think it is needed I write the answer it is sooo obvious... It is ANALOG to ANALOG, no frills, no need of conversion, pure sound quality.

If you want to talk about a hi-fi recording of an acoustic instrument like an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a violin, a piano, a punping organ, a drums, there isn't still a better way to record them than ANALOG boards becouse 0's and 1's are simply still unable to correctly record an ANALOG instruments. I'm a musician, I play electric and acoustic guitars, bass, piano, organ and pretty much everything it come in my hands, and I've never been able to properly record my instruments on my Hard Disk. I still record them on tape, and like me very many professionals, simply becouse it is better some little hisss from the tape then a metallic sound with no heart (and simply not similar to how a guitar or a piano really play). I can't even record my vintage and beloved Voxx guitar amps over digital, becouse it simply sux big time! Then this is another story, not too much tho.

Then modern technology, computers, information society pushed us on the digital side, but this doesn't mean that is the right way to go: digital is for sampling electronic instruments, restore old registrations and not much more, if we look for something called HIGH FIDELITY.

 

[Vladimir]

@Max

As a musician, would you say Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms are well recorded?

 

[chebby]

@Max

As a musician, would you say Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms are well recorded?

A very transparent 'trick' question.

 

[Vladimir]

@Max

As a musician, would you say Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms are well recorded?

A very transparent 'trick' question.

Maieutics is a "trick"?

 

[MaxD]

@Max

As a musician, would you say Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms are well recorded?

The Nightfly doesn't have a heart and Fagen never been able to play it onstage; It was probably the first CD I bought, if memory serve me well, it was digitally recorded, I don't have the time to check, it never impressed me so much, not my cup of tea, no heart. BTW., I loved Steely Dan and I own all them original recordings. They sound really really good on vinyl. Dire Straits for me died after Communique, it is not exactly my cup of tea. Probably never heard Brothers in Arms on my stereo.

PS: Unless Dire Straits, people should listen to the sadly, recently died legend JJ Cale.

 

[chebby]

@Max, looking at your signature, you have 10,000+ LPs. They deserve a much better turntable / arm / cartridge.

Even if you just changed the 2M Red for a 2M Blue stylus it would be a good start. (Nude elliptical instead of 'tipped' elliptical.)

With that much of you invested in LPs your TT set-up seems a bit 'miserly'.

 

[MaxD]

@Max, looking at your signature, you have 10,000+ LPs. They deserve a much better turntable / arm / cartridge.

Even if you just changed the 2M Red for a 2M Blue stylus it would be a good start. (Nude elliptical instead of 'tipped' elliptical.)

With that much of you invested in LPs your TT set-up seems a bit 'miserly'.

It probably makes no difference. Original cartridge sound perfect. I like the music, I'm not interested in esoteric hi-fi.

PS: if it wasn't so usefull beside my deskop pc, I will prolly change the NAD D 3020: it sound really good, then It is a class D amp and I will prefer - even here in the studio - a class A/B amp. I do have a spare Denon PMA720AE around this days and I'm tempted to replace the NAD with the Denon, so the chain will be all ANALOG. Not sure if I will.

 

[CnoEvil]

@Max

As a musician, would you say Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms are well recorded?

A very transparent 'trick' question.

Maieutics is a "trick"?

You're not into Solipsism, by any chance?

 

[chebby]

@Max, looking at your signature, you have 10,000+ LPs. They deserve a much better turntable / arm / cartridge.

Even if you just changed the 2M Red for a 2M Blue stylus it would be a good start. (Nude elliptical instead of 'tipped' elliptical.)

With that much of you invested in LPs your TT set-up seems a bit 'miserly'.

It probably makes no difference. Original cartridge sound perfect. I like the music, I'm not interested in esoteric hi-fi.

A 2M Blue stylus is hardly 'esoteric'. It's simply going to track a bit better than the 'tipped' elliptical stylus on the 2M Red. (Less tip mass.)

The advice about a better TT, arm and cartridge is also aimed at preserving your collection for longer (especially the more frequently played ones) and not just improving the sound quality.

A better stylus profile (one that makes as much contact with as much of the groove walls as possible) actually helps suppress groove noise and spreads out the groove wear thus reducing it at any given point of contact. (A bit like the wheels on a lorry. The more wheels, the more contact area and the less weight on any given wheel and thus less wear.)

 

[Vladimir]

@Cno

To an extent but not fully. I have trouble being faithful to most -isms. :hand:

Another trivia about The Nightfly. It is in the top 10 albums aproved by Vatican magazine L'Osservatore Romano.

1. Revolver by the Beatles

2. If I could Only Remember My Name by David Crosby

3. The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd

4. Rumours by Fleetwood Mac

5. The Nightfly by Donald Fagen

6. Thriller by Michael Jackson

7. Graceland by Paul Simon

8. Achtung Baby by U2

9. (What's the story) Morning Glory by Oasis

10. Supernatural by Carlos Santana

It does have soul baby!

 

[Vladimir]

Donald Fagen's solor project The Nightfly was among the first DDD out there (16 bit, 48kHz). It is considered a masterpiece of recording, mixing, mastering etc. all the technical accolades. Above this is its essence, the music which is a complex multilayered bricolage of jazz, rock, pop, blues, r'n'b and funk. it caries the DNA of Steely Dan, not just Fagen, despite it is an autobiographical themed solo project.

Part of the album crew:

Anthony Jackson - Bass

Steve Jordan - Drums

Steve Khan - Guest Artist, Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic)

Marcus Miller - Bass, Guest Artist

Gary Katz - Producer

Bob Ludwig - Mastering

Loudness levels: http://dr.loudness-w...um=the nightfly.

Quote

A portrait of the artist as a young man, The Nightfly is a wonderfully evocative reminiscence of Kennedy-era American life; in the liner notes, Donald Fagen describes the songs as representative of the kinds of fantasies he entertained as an adolescent during the late '50s/early '60s, and he conveys the tenor of the times with some of his most personal and least obtuse material to date. Continuing in the smooth pop-jazz mode favored on the final Steely Dan records, The Nightfly is lush and shimmering, produced with cinematic flair by Gary Katz; romanticized but never sentimental, the songs are slices of suburbanite soap opera, tales of space-age hopes (the hit "I.G.Y.") and Cold War fears (the wonderful "The New Frontier," a memoir of fallout-shelter love) crafted with impeccable style and sophistication.

The opening track and first single from Donald Fagen's solo debut, "I.G.Y. (International Geophysical Year)" is a dryly ironic take on the prevailing optimism of the late '50s. The International Geophysical Year -- 1958, to be precise -- was a combination research project and public relations move by the world's scientists, who banded together to collect and share information across geographic boundaries. In terms of Fagen's lyrics, the I.G.Y. is the symbol of all the promises that science held in his Popular Mechanics youth: ordinary people traveling to permanent space stations, undersea high-speed rail travel between New York and Paris, solar-powered cities, etc. The irony, of course, comes in the payoff line, "Well, by '76, we'll be A-OK." As the song goes on, creepier elements insinuate themselves into Fagen's utopian vision, images of "a just machine to make big decisions/Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision" delivered with the same gee-whiz enthusiasm as the earlier verses. Musically, the song amplifies the future-perfect theme of the lyrics by counterpointing the jazzy unison horn riff at the melody's center with the sort of theremin-like electronic squeals that would be all over the soundtrack to a late-'50s drive-in science fiction flick, or an album of forbidding electronic "music of the future" from the same period; ironically, by the song's 1982 release, sounds that would have seemed freakishly alien in 1958 were simply another element of mainstream pop music.

Quote

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West had been seriously interrupted. Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 opened the way for this new era of collaboration. Sixty-seven countries participated in IGY projects, although one notable exception was mainland China, which was protesting against the participation of the Republic of China (Taiwan). East and West agreed to nominate the Belgian Marcel Nicolet as secretary general of the associated international organization.
The IGY encompassed eleven Earth sciences: aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, gravity, ionospheric physics, longitude and latitude determinations (precision mapping), meteorology, oceanography, seismology, and solar activity. Both the Soviet Union and the U.S. launched artificial satellites for this event; the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1, launched on October 4, 1957, was the first successful artificial satellite. Other significant achievements of the IGY included the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts and the discovery of mid-ocean submarine ridges, an important confirmation of plate tectonics.[1] Also detected was the rare occurrence of hard solar corpuscular radiation that could be highly dangerous for manned space flight.

Quote

The album's cover artwork features a photo of Donald Fagen as a disc jockey, wearing a collared shirt and tie, speaking into a RCA 77DX microphone. In front of him is a turntable (16 inch '50s model, with a Para-Flux A-16 tonearm), an ashtray, and a pack of Chesterfield King cigarettes. Visible on the table with the record player, is the cover of the 1958 jazz album Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders (credited in the liner notes). On the wall behind is a large clock, indicating that the time is 4:09.
Gale Sasson and Vern Yenor are credited with the cover's set design. George Delmerico acted as art director, and the picture was taken by noted art photographer James Hamilton. The Wall Street Journal writes, "The cover adds another layer of autobiography. On the front, we see Mr. Fagen as a crew-cut deejay on the graveyard shift. On the back is his audience, a single lighted window in a row of tract homes -- or maybe the artist as a young man, drinking in inspiration."

There are speculations that the turntable is RCA, Rek-O-Cut, Russco or maybe Western Electric from the early '50s. The identity is still unknown for certain.

I realise this album to the beer soaked hard rocker is the epitome of elevator music. It was eunuch tunes for me as well before I gave it a chance and dug deeper.

So... any soul in this album? Any other opinions?

 

[Electro]

Maieutics is a "trick"?

Definitely not a trick ! It's a very effective way to guide people on to the path of knowlege and help them understand what they already know when they don't realise they already know it .

 

[Native_bon]

Donald Fagen's solor project The Nightfly was among the first DDD out there (16 bit, 48kHz). It is considered a masterpiece of recording, mixing, mastering etc. all the technical accolades. Above this is its essence, the music which is a complex multilayered bricolage of jazz, rock, pop, blues, r'n'b and funk. it caries the DNA of Steely Dan, not just Fagen, despite it is an autobiographical themed solo project.

Part of the album crew:

Anthony Jackson - Bass

Steve Jordan - Drums

Steve Khan - Guest Artist, Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic)

Marcus Miller - Bass, Guest Artist

Gary Katz - Producer

Bob Ludwig - Mastering

Loudness levels: http://dr.loudness-w...um=the nightfly.

Quote

A portrait of the artist as a young man, The Nightfly is a wonderfully evocative reminiscence of Kennedy-era American life; in the liner notes, Donald Fagen describes the songs as representative of the kinds of fantasies he entertained as an adolescent during the late '50s/early '60s, and he conveys the tenor of the times with some of his most personal and least obtuse material to date. Continuing in the smooth pop-jazz mode favored on the final Steely Dan records, The Nightfly is lush and shimmering, produced with cinematic flair by Gary Katz; romanticized but never sentimental, the songs are slices of suburbanite soap opera, tales of space-age hopes (the hit "I.G.Y.") and Cold War fears (the wonderful "The New Frontier," a memoir of fallout-shelter love) crafted with impeccable style and sophistication.

The opening track and first single from Donald Fagen's solo debut, "I.G.Y. (International Geophysical Year)" is a dryly ironic take on the prevailing optimism of the late '50s. The International Geophysical Year -- 1958, to be precise -- was a combination research project and public relations move by the world's scientists, who banded together to collect and share information across geographic boundaries. In terms of Fagen's lyrics, the I.G.Y. is the symbol of all the promises that science held in his Popular Mechanics youth: ordinary people traveling to permanent space stations, undersea high-speed rail travel between New York and Paris, solar-powered cities, etc. The irony, of course, comes in the payoff line, "Well, by '76, we'll be A-OK." As the song goes on, creepier elements insinuate themselves into Fagen's utopian vision, images of "a just machine to make big decisions/Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision" delivered with the same gee-whiz enthusiasm as the earlier verses. Musically, the song amplifies the future-perfect theme of the lyrics by counterpointing the jazzy unison horn riff at the melody's center with the sort of theremin-like electronic squeals that would be all over the soundtrack to a late-'50s drive-in science fiction flick, or an album of forbidding electronic "music of the future" from the same period; ironically, by the song's 1982 release, sounds that would have seemed freakishly alien in 1958 were simply another element of mainstream pop music.

Quote

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West had been seriously interrupted. Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 opened the way for this new era of collaboration. Sixty-seven countries participated in IGY projects, although one notable exception was mainland China, which was protesting against the participation of the Republic of China (Taiwan). East and West agreed to nominate the Belgian Marcel Nicolet as secretary general of the associated international organization.
The IGY encompassed eleven Earth sciences: aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, gravity, ionospheric physics, longitude and latitude determinations (precision mapping), meteorology, oceanography, seismology, and solar activity. Both the Soviet Union and the U.S. launched artificial satellites for this event; the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1, launched on October 4, 1957, was the first successful artificial satellite. Other significant achievements of the IGY included the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts and the discovery of mid-ocean submarine ridges, an important confirmation of plate tectonics.[1] Also detected was the rare occurrence of hard solar corpuscular radiation that could be highly dangerous for manned space flight.

Quote

The album's cover artwork features a photo of Donald Fagen as a disc jockey, wearing a collared shirt and tie, speaking into a RCA 77DX microphone. In front of him is a turntable (16 inch '50s model, with a Para-Flux A-16 tonearm), an ashtray, and a pack of Chesterfield King cigarettes. Visible on the table with the record player, is the cover of the 1958 jazz album Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders (credited in the liner notes). On the wall behind is a large clock, indicating that the time is 4:09.
Gale Sasson and Vern Yenor are credited with the cover's set design. George Delmerico acted as art director, and the picture was taken by noted art photographer James Hamilton. The Wall Street Journal writes, "The cover adds another layer of autobiography. On the front, we see Mr. Fagen as a crew-cut deejay on the graveyard shift. On the back is his audience, a single lighted window in a row of tract homes -- or maybe the artist as a young man, drinking in inspiration."

There are speculations that the turntable is RCA, Rek-O-Cut, Russco or maybe Western Electric from the early '50s. The identity is still unknown for certain.

I realise this album to the beer soaked hard rocker is the epitome of elevator music. It was eunuch tunes for me as well before I gave it a chance and dug deeper.

So... any soul in this album? Any other opinions?

Oh what a line up.. Got my attention there. Macus miller one of the best bass players in the World if not the best.

 

[MaxD]

A 2M Blue stylus is hardly 'esoteric'.

It is when you own (and not from long ago) a product pretty much similar, that sound perfectly fine and that still have a long life ahead of him.

BTW. thank you for your esoteric considerations about "groove walls" of my records

 

[chebby]

A 2M Blue stylus is hardly 'esoteric'.

It is when you own (and not from long ago) a product pretty much similar, that sound perfectly fine and that still have a long life ahead of him.

BTW. thank you for your esoteric considerations about "groove walls" of my records

Just suggesting what I found out myself the last time I had a turntable and the Ortofon 2M Red. I swapped out the stylus for the 2M Blue and it sounded a lot better ...

(My old 2M Red cartridge with red "2M" markings and 2M Blue stylus upgrade and blue Kraftwerk Autobahn LP.)

 

[lindsayt]

@Max

As a musician, would you say Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms are well recorded?

Brothers in Arms isn't as well recorded as their first 3 albums. It sounds too digital.

The Nightfly isn't as well recorded as a live Steely Dan analogue tape that I have.

 

[Vladimir]

Part of the album crew:

Anthony Jackson - Bass

Steve Jordan - Drums

Steve Khan - Guest Artist, Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic)

Marcus Miller - Bass, Guest Artist

Gary Katz - Producer

Bob Ludwig - Mastering

Oh what a line up.. Got my attention there. Macus miller one of the best bass players in the World if not the best.

Marcus Miller is my fav bass player ever! M2 and Marcus are in my most listened albums. Also Steve Jordan is a insane groove machine, a living legend and top class drummer.

 

[MaxD]

@Max

As a musician, would you say Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms are well recorded?

Brothers in Arms isn't as well recorded as their first 3 albums. It sounds too digital.

The Nightfly isn't as well recorded as a live Steely Dan analogue tape that I have.

I just put The Nightfly 1982 original CD on the player right now. It is sooooo cold, and yes, it lacks dynamics, my opinion is now even more critical compared to the memories I had before. I ask for more from the music. Have you ever heard of Bill Labounty? He do something like that, with a lot more heart.

I saw Donald Fagen in 2012 here in Rome, at the Auditorium della Musica. Live was a lot better, pretty much all acoustics instruments, a lot of steinway piano (if memory serve me well), a lot more "steely danish" than his spare solo recordings.

Records like The Nightfly have all the defects typical of a early digital recordings. no emotions, no feelings. You know metallic piano, I HATE IT!!! :-(

Edit: oooops, I do also own an orginal European (WEA label) vinyl copy of this!!! I try it now. See if something change!

 

[Vladimir]

Those were my initial impressions as well, I didn't know what format it is, I just didn't like the sound being so thin. I wanted my body to feel the music, not just hear it.

When I read what is the actual theme (the message) of the album I understood why it was recorded like that. It is not from lack of musical skills or digital technology limitations. If anything digital has dynamics and BASS in spades compared to anything else.

It has an artistic message that was carefully crafted and portrays it astonishingly well.

Think about it. Why the Vatican likes and publicly endorses this album?

 

[Native_bon]

I have been to Macus Miller's concerts 3 times now.. The most memorable one at the royal festive hall, with special guest Me'shell Ndegeocello & the group band called OUTSIDE. Funk bass & soul heaven.

 

[Vladimir]

Good to know is that still today sound engineers use The Nightfly as a reference material to setup studio or public event gear for sound. There must be good reasons for this, I presume.

 

[matt49]

Well, I do not agree. Musical tastes. yes, they are a matter of preferencies, then there are few technical points that have to be made clear when we talk about audio formats and quality.

Why people listen to digital music in form of files do use a DAC? Simple: it need the best possible conversion between digital and ANALOG.

Also CD players do have DAC inside: becouse they also need to translate the 0's and 1's to ANALOG

Why this? Becouse the most part of amplifiers are ANALOG equipment and those Digital (class D) also do have internally a DAC to convert digital to ANALOG.

And what about hi-fi speakers? Yes, they are ANALOG and this is the reason becouse we all need all this equipment to translate our modern digital music to ANALOG, becouse our speakers are a ANALOG piece of equipment, so no ANALOG translation, NO music.

Said so, now why a vinyl listening chain composed by a turntable, a pickup (all ANALOG equipment), a stereo amplifier (in class A/B, so ANALOG) and finally a good pair of speakers (ANALOG equipment them too) sound better, undoubtfully better of any digital music IF the source is an ANALOG recording made with an ANALOG BOARD on an ANALOG tape? I don't think it is needed I write the answer it is sooo obvious... It is ANALOG to ANALOG, no frills, no need of conversion, pure sound quality.

If you want to talk about a hi-fi recording of an acoustic instrument like an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a violin, a piano, a punping organ, a drums, there isn't still a better way to record them than ANALOG boards becouse 0's and 1's are simply still unable to correctly record an ANALOG instruments. I'm a musician, I play electric and acoustic guitars, bass, piano, organ and pretty much everything it come in my hands, and I've never been able to properly record my instruments on my Hard Disk. I still record them on tape, and like me very many professionals, simply becouse it is better some little hisss from the tape then a metallic sound with no heart (and simply not similar to how a guitar or a piano really play). I can't even record my vintage and beloved Voxx guitar amps over digital, becouse it simply sux big time! Then this is another story, not too much tho.

Then modern technology, computers, information society pushed us on the digital side, but this doesn't mean that is the right way to go: digital is for sampling electronic instruments, restore old registrations and not much more, if we look for something called HIGH FIDELITY.

You have not understood my post. I suggest you read it again.

In addition, the text in bold above is factually incorrect. You evidently don't understand how digital audio works.

I'd also make this observation: classical music (which, excepting some modern material, is played on acoustic instruments) has been recorded digitally for many years now. These recordings are the state of the art and are produced and marketed for replay on high fidelity equipment. If your argument were correct, you would be saying that the whole classical music recording industry is deficient. Is that what you believe?

Matt

 

[MaxD]

Think about it. Why the Vatican likes and publicly endorses this album?

Good god, just to remain on subject, are you joking? Vatican? I live three km from Vatican state and I'm worried about the article you posted, then it is fun those absurd guys choose devilish records by Revolver and Oasis in them playlist. Soooo stupid.

I could say The Nightfly sux on vinyl too (yep a digital recordinAgs sux big big time on vinyl), perfect choice for L'Osservatore Romano and for middle aged priest and generally speaking middle aged guys.

I didn't even imagine I could read about Vatican on Whathifi forum :help:

 

[Vladimir]

The album is skeptical about human progress driven by science and reminiscences 30 years later from the optimistic '50s. I'm guessing this is why it was endorsed, also because it may be favorited by their targeted group, the baby boomers.

OK, time to run now. I can hear the PC battalion thumping along.

 

[davedotco]

Bringing the thread slghtly back on track, the OP is asking the wrong question.

Given that we know, (it can be empirically proved) that the appealing nature of vinyl playback is due to the character introduced by the vinyl player, the argument should move on to discussing how we can make digital playback appealing in the same way.

Simple tests have shown that adding noise to an otherwise silent digital recording is percieved by many as an improvement, making the sound more natural.

Surely the way forward is to determine those characteristics that, when added to a 'clean' digital recording, make it sound more real, more analogue.

I am not talking about the crass vinyl simulation software that is currently available but something altogether more sophisticated.