In the week leading up to the weekend of January 11th, much discussion broke out on the Hoffman forum about Steely Dan remasters. As a fan of Steely Dan, I was curious what is the best source for listening to their classic albums, especially considering how well produced they tend to be. It was actually when shopping for a Steely Dan CD of Aja that the concept of better sounding CDs came to my attention. I had first become acquainted with this album from an 8-track tape I obtained from my dad, which faded out Deacon Blues mid song to change programs. Classy. So, in order to enjoy this album, with correct track order, without mid song interruptions, and in high fidelity CD sound, I decided to pick up a CD of it at The Wiz. I found a CD of it, with a rather large border around the cover art, and with a rather pricy price tag on it. I was a bit confused at the price, but....eh, I did want this album. My dad saw it in my hand and commented that it was one of those more expensive CDs that are supposed to sound better, if you have expensive equipment. Being that this was going in my GE boom box, I didn't really qualify for this, so I decided, let me check back in the rack and see if there was a standard one in there. Sure enough, there was. Of course, some years later I picked up a used copy of the MFSL disc, and handed the standard issue CD to my dad. Why would I need this anymore, the MFSL is always better, it costs more, so how could it not?
Well, there was a lot of conflicting discussion about this CD on the Hoffman forums. Apparently some of the standard CD issues were mastered by Hoffman himself, so there are people that prefer that. Although many people have nice things to say about the MFSL one as well. This was a disc that I couldn't seem to get a majority vibe from reading the various posts on the forum relating to it. Many people pointed to an article online about Roger Nichols being rather disappointed in the quality of CD issues not mastered by him, disappointed that they didn't use his digital transfer, which was done right, and suggesting that the wrong tapes were used. This has resulted in a lot of people claiming the MFSL CD was remastered from an inferior tape. Which....MFSL was in the practice of always going back to the master tape, so this is quite an accusation. In the end, it seemed to me to be strongly suggested by parties that know what their talking about that the article referenced wasn't exactly completely accurate, and the correct master was used for the MFSL CD.
This resulted in my searching out various information on different CD masterings of all Steely Dan albums. I found a thread for every album discussing the 4 or more masterings that existed for each album. From some discussions, you can see that there's a majority that prefer a certain mastering. And then for others, there's plenty of information about the mastering, but not much on how they sound or which are better. It was making my head spin.
So, with my trusty headphones, I started comparing my flac files of my MFSL Aja CD, and my Citizen Steely Dan Box, and decided that I lean towards the MFSL CD. Ok...cool.
So, I grabbed the MFSL CD off the shelf, put it into the Oppo, and had myself a nice listen. Quite enjoyable. There's nothing wrong with this CD at all.
So, when it comes to the question of what to grab for a listen to Aja, and you have the MFSL CD and the Citizen Steely Dan box, the answer for me is MFSL.
I then grabbed my Gaucho SACD, and had a nice listen to the 5.1 on that. I never cared for that album, I felt they went too far with the very anal perfection in production by then and lost most of the feeling in their performances, but....it was an enjoyable listen, I was in the right mood after having a nice listen to Aja.
I then worked on obtaining some more flacs, for research purposes, of other Steely Dan CD issues, including the Hoffman mastered Katy Lied and Aja....but those will have to be listened to another time.
Questions I still have:
How does the MFSL Aja CD compare to the Hoffman mastered Aja?
What about the MFSL LP of Aja? Perhaps I can find a needledrop before investing in a purchase.
My standard CBAT CD vs. the Citizen Box.
Standard LP of CBAT vs. Japanese inport LP.
Best LP of CBAT vs. best CD.
What about my Katy Lied MFSL LP? Vs. other vinyl, then vs. best CD...which also needs to be determined.
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