All 9 Steely Dan albums to be released on Hybrid Stereo SACD courtesy of Analogue Productions

[ssully]

That's why I asked. I thought the Aja masters were lost.

*Some* of the multitracks have gone missing.

I don't know the status of the two-track master tapes.

 

[Tres Discrete]

A word of warning to anyone thinking about buying the Countdown to Ecstasy SACD: the final three tracks (My Old School, Pearl of the Quarter and King of the World) are all between 2-3% too fast - enough of a difference to be noticeable if you're familiar with the music - compared to all previous CD reissues.

Perhaps @humprof can chime in here as to which one is "correct", but it's my understanding that the original LP releases of this album in the '70s had this same problem, but when Roger Nichols did the CD reissues in the '80s he corrected the problem, and all subsequent reissues (which apparently stemmed from those early '80s digital transfers) had the slower/longer running times.

How does that even happen?!?!
Good thing they aren’t 3 of the best songs on the album.
Oh, wait…actually they are

 

[key_wiz]

*Some* of the multitracks have gone missing.

I don't know the status of the two-track master tapes.

As this album has been remastered and rereleased a thousand times over the years I suspect the two-track masters are just fine.

 

[ssully]

As this album has been remastered and rereleased a thousand times over the years I suspect the two-track masters are just fine.

Roger Nichols transferred them to digital decades ago for safekeeping, so I can't say if they've ever been accessed since.

 

[ssully]

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-steely-dan-songs-on-aja-that-cant-be-remixed/

 

[key_wiz]

Roger Nichols transferred them to digital decades ago for safekeeping, so I can't say if they've ever been accessed since.

What? You mean I'm not getting "original masters" from MFSL and other companies?

 

[humprof]

Roger Nichols transferred them to digital decades ago for safekeeping, so I can't say if they've ever been accessed since.

What? You mean I'm not getting "original masters" from MFSL and other companies?

The story that Josh Mound tells at AudiophileStyle is that when Nichols first digitized all the analog stereo masters in 1981 or 82, the B-side of Aja "couldn't be found," so he had to use his personal copy. (See this Sound on Sound column from 2006. Also: it emerges in Josh's postscript that even by the early 80s, the Aja tapes were already in bad shape because they'd been used repeatedly to make lacquer masters.)

In 1984, new digital transfers may or may not have been done by Nichols and/or by Steve Hoffman for the first CD issues. Hoffman and Glenn Meadows tell somewhat conflicting stories, and frankly the whole story gets so tangled that I have trouble tracking it, and I'm not sure the truth can be extricated. (Hoffman has entered the fray again just recently on his own forum; read through post #4521.)

MFSL supposedly accessed the analog masters--which ones, and in what condition, isn't clear--in 1988. But since then, if I'm reading it right, all the various reissues & remasters have been sourced from one or the other of those early digital transfers, sometimes de-noised and/or EQ'd, except for the 2010 Japanese SACD, which came from Japanese analog masters. In 2006, Nichols reported that "in 1997 we tried to transfer the old Steely Dan two-track masters again with newer technology. Because of the additional 15 years of deterioration, the digital transfers done in 1981 sounded much better than anything we could do in 1997."

When Analog Productions broke their big news last fall, the spiel was that "all albums [we]re being meticulously remastered by Bernie Grundman from the original analog tapes except for Aja, which will be mastered from an analog, non-EQ'd, tape copy, and Gaucho, which will be sourced from a 1980 analog tape copy originally EQ'd by Bob Ludwig." (I'm quoting from Vinyl Junkies, but like everyone else they were quoting from the label's press materials.) So...US safety copy of Sides A and B? Japanese copy? How many generations removed from the original? I haven't read any other details.

 

[humprof]

Postscript: I stumbled onto a 2013 Gearspace thread where Steve Genewick talks about having "transferred Aja and Gaucho for Elliott a long time ago." "The shedding was massive," he said, "even after baking. I was literally scrapping [sic] tape off the heads after every song." Downthread someone asked: "I heard that your transfers were the last to be done - or did you transfer to another multitrack for Archival purposes?" He never replied.

 

[privateuniverse]

Meanwhile the folks at The Midnight Special have just added this little gem to their YouTube channel:

 

[GOS]

Meanwhile the folks at The Midnight Special have just added this little gem to their YouTube channel:

Oh man, that was amazing. Just killer. Talk about a tight band. Sheesh

 

[key_wiz]

Postscript: I stumbled onto a 2013 Gearspace thread where Steve Genewick talks about having "transferred Aja and Gaucho for Elliott a long time ago." "The shedding was massive," he said, "even after baking. I was literally scrapping [sic] tape off the heads after every song." Downthread someone asked: "I heard that your transfers were the last to be done - or did you transfer to another multitrack for Archival purposes?" He never replied.

If that transfer is what preceded the Gaucho 5.1, I commend him for his work! I certainly don’t hear any dropouts.

 

[dabl]

Oh man, that was amazing. Just killer. Talk about a tight band. Sheesh

Yeah I wonder what song they were tuning up for next was.....

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Meanwhile the folks at The Midnight Special have just added this little gem to their YouTube channel:

 

[GOS]

Good stuff, though I'd prefer Donald Fagen singing lead as on the album.

 

[marpow]

Over the weekend I did a quick comparison with the Citizen Steely Dan CD I have and the new SACD. If you’re sensitive to pitch changes, listening to the first bar or so of Pearl of the Quarter back to back between the two CDs is very, very noticeable... painfully so. I don’t notice as much on the other two songs.

Those three songs do have the biggest time difference between versions.

I just read 6 pages of this thread, informative.
I was surprised that @Blackwood was only one to do an actual comparison and that is what I am trying to find out.
I did purchase the AP SACD of Can't Buy A Thrill and received it yesterday just to add missing to my collection.

8 X 35 = $280.00 plus tax.
I have Japanese SHM SACD's of Gaucho, Aja, Pretzel Logic, and Countdown To Ecstasy.
I have 5.1 of Gaucho and Two Against Nature.

So I would need Katy Lied and the Royal Scam.

But I also have secret versions of those.

Is there any convincing knowledge that the AP versions at $280.00 would be worth it. Like phase correction or stuff like that?
I guess it would be wait and see as I don't like being the guinea pig anymore.

Still wondering if anyone has knowledge about my above question.
I remember when Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow had a Japanese 7" SACD release and then AP came out with a corrected phase SACD of Blow By Blow.
So why would a collector, choose to add these current AP SACD stereo releases? This page AP 9 titles still available SACD

 

[Dynamic Editor]

@marpow Whatever link you just tried to send didn't work, btw.

 

[Simon A]

I just read 6 pages of this thread, informative.
I was surprised that @Blackwood was only one to do an actual comparison and that is what I am trying to find out.
I did purchase the AP SACD of Can't Buy A Thrill and received it yesterday just to add missing to my collection.


Still wondering if anyone has knowledge about my above question.
I remember when Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow had a Japanese 7" SACD release and then AP came out with a corrected phase SACD of Blow By Blow.
So why would a collector, choose to add these current AP SACD stereo releases? This page AP 9 titles still available SACD

This is fellow QQ member Plan9's personal observations on which mastering he preferred taken from a thread on the subject on SH.tv:

Can’t Buy a Thrill — AP mastering (Hi-Res download)

Countdown to Ecstasy — AP mastering (Hi-Res download -I like the "sped-up" tracks) > early Nichols/Hoffman CD > SHM-SACD

Pretzel Logic — early Nichols/Hoffman CD (more balanced tonality) > AP mastering (Hi-Res download -a bit muddy) > SHM-SACD (too trebly)

Katy Lied — early Nichols/Hoffman CD or Kendun A vinyl

The Royal Scam — early Nichols/Hoffman CD

Aja — Steve Hoffman CD vs everything including vinyl

Gaucho — SHM-SACD vs everything else digital I have heard

Two Against Nature — 5.1 mix, I don't like the stereo mix for this album

Everything Must Go — toss up between the original DVD-A (more energy and consistency) and AP SACD (more dynamics but disjointed)

 

[Blackwood]

I just read 6 pages of this thread, informative.
I was surprised that @Blackwood was only one to do an actual comparison and that is what I am trying to find out.
I did purchase the AP SACD of Can't Buy A Thrill and received it yesterday just to add missing to my collection.


Still wondering if anyone has knowledge about my above question.
I remember when Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow had a Japanese 7" SACD release and then AP came out with a corrected phase SACD of Blow By Blow.
So why would a collector, choose to add these current AP SACD stereo releases? This page AP 9 titles still available SACD

You might check this thread on Hoffman:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/steely-dan-ap-sacd-sound-quality-only-discussion.1165691/
And that points to this interesting post:

https://audiophilestyle.com/blogs/entry/844-mini-tbvo-steely-dans-cant-buy-a-thrill/

 

[marpow]

@marpow Whatever link you just tried to send didn't work, btw.

https://store.acousticsounds.com/index.cfm?get=results&searchtext=steely dan&CategoryID=4

 

[humprof]

You might check this thread on Hoffman:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/steely-dan-ap-sacd-sound-quality-only-discussion.1165691/
And that points to this interesting post:

https://audiophilestyle.com/blogs/entry/844-mini-tbvo-steely-dans-cant-buy-a-thrill/

If you have the patience, there's also this thread at Hoffman:
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/steely-dan-cds-different-masterings-the-summary-thread.561226
And I would recommend all of Josh Mound's painstaking "TBVO" columns, several of which are Dan-centric or Dan-adjacent:
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/the-best-version-of/