I have nightfly on vinyl, pretty sure it’s first press, wasn’t that rare back in the day. I do think you are contradicting yourself though, if is so well mastered then the format shouldn’t matter?Again mastering > format. As an example The Nightfly is a digital recording, yet my promo-stamped UK 1st press vinyl kicks the living crap out of both the CD (digital master, I’ve never heard the withdrawn analogue 1st master) and the SACD. Just laughably better. That’s on a 1960s TD-124/3009 vs. a £2.6k DPA DAC too!
Ha, ha, well I’m listening to the album & you are notCheers Woodface but I have never partaken of new technologies and am not going to start now.
I do think you are contradicting yourself though, if is so well mastered then the format shouldn’t matter?
I can’t 100% remember what mine is but I bought it probably 20 years ago. It’s a digital recording but before CD so it could just be how good the initial master was versus subsequent ones. I have ‘Everything Must Go’ on vinyl, first press & think it is a great recording.They are not the same; different EQ, different compression etc. I much prefer the UK 1st press vinyl it is just so punchy and alive sounding. An incredible sounding record. The UK copy is actually fairly hard to find, the vast majority are German Alsdorf pressings, which are still very nice, but not as crazy good as the UK. I’ve never heard the US pressing, though I suspect mine is from a US lacquer as it has Masterdisk RL in the run-off, i.e. Bob Ludwig.
PS All my other Fagen is on CD.
Both Everything Must Go and Two Against Nature (also Kamakiriad which was on German vinyl, and particularily later Donald Fagen solo LPs) are ALL digital recordings. They're not analog recordings, so all they really are is 16 or 24 bit CD masters pressed onto vinyl.
Dan fans are often audiophiles, if you know how good, say, the Robert Ludwig cut Greatest Hits tracks sound on vinyl, then this is not what you're going to find on these LPs, whoever mastered them - I doubt they could ever be made to sound like vinyl does, they're so compact disc sounding, mixed and produced.
They do sound ok on vinyl, mainly because they're well recorded and decently pressed, but they still sound like you're playing a CD on a decent system, all the lacking in bottom end, ultra crisp mids and rather shrill highs, plus that horrid, compressed, gated drum sound the Dan have used in recent years doesn't help tonally - it almost sounds worse on vinyl - gone the days of Jim Hodder, Hal Blaine, Bernard Purdy, Jim Keltner, Jeff Porcaro's acoustic sounding drums that's for sure.
Other than owning them as rarities on vinyl, you might as well stick with the CDs if you have a half decent CD player. They really don't sound any different, and they certainly don't sound 'better', in fact they don't really sound like vinyl does actually, just warmed up CDs...
Even if Everything Must Go is remastered on 180g vinyl for RSD, which may well sound better, it's still only going to be a digital master pressed onto vinyl, nothing is going to change that 'CD' sound.