[theeclone]

I'm not a recording engineer, but I can confirm from my own experience. Fagen is (and Becker was) a sound quality maniac. I read in an interview with Gary Katz that they used to argue about 1 db changes in a mix... and then, when Katz would go back and listen, their mix sounded better. It certainly shows in their CDs, LPs and streams. Love the band and love the fact that they will always show me what my system is capable of - and where it needs work, too.

I'm particularly fond of this story. They spent 6 hours working on the words "Well the" for "Home at Last" during the Aja sessions

"We’d be remiss if we didn’t include this anecdote about seasoned studio engineer Lenise Bent, who worked with the band during their Aja sessions. It was the recording of the song “Home at Last” that brought her to a breaking point, due to Fagen and Becker’s insistence on getting two words, two syllables, absolutely perfect. As remembered by Dick LaPalm, Bent’s friend and publicist extraordinaire:

"‘Dick, I have to talk to you.’ She put her head down on the desk in her arms and said, ‘Well-the, well-the, well-the.’ I said, ‘What are you doing?’ Lenise looked up and said, ‘Dick, I have to get off the Aja session. They worked on the words ‘well the’ for six hours last night. All they did was work those two words for just the right sound for hours. I really have to get off the session.’"

https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/steely-dan-stories-of-donald-fagen-and-walter-becker.html

I appreciate the perfectionism to a degree, but anything after Aja is kind of iffy for me, when I feel they started taking it to a pretty absurd degree, at the expense of the human element of musicianship (e.g. that programmed beat on "Hey Nineteen"). I think of recorded music first and foremost as a kind of language, the same way people talk about the "language of film". It's a cultural artifact, with nods to the values of the cultures it comes from. With the later Steely Dan stuff it's almost like they tried creating their own dialect of recorded music that did away with a lot of the language that had come before, all in the name of perfectionism.

IMHO of course

 

[sixergixer]

Evidently I’ve been audiophiling all wrong…!

P.S. Ought not “commando” be a fourth option?

Yeah, you've gotta put your whole body into it.

 

[Les Strat]

Certainly SD is a high level guide for recorded pop music (and very well done), but something like "Aja" had 64 tracks (or more), mixing, mastering, musicians playing alone in the studio, they tried what - 6 or 7 drummers - before they settled on Gadd - there is no way to be sure what the exact sound should be - but I agree that it does make for an interesting/useful comparison tool.

Still on an absolute level, give me a 3 mic 1/2 speed master or 15 ips tape of a live unamplified performance in a great Hall for the creme de la creme tool - in particular if one was present for the recording or at least at another time in the same Hall with the same artist(s)/conductor.

I have most of Steely Dan’s albums- from ‘Can’t Buy a Thrill’ up to, and including, ‘Gaucho’.

I particularly like Aja.

SD are not a band I listen to a lot as they can be a bit too ‘polished’ for me, but there is no doubt that their albums are all well crafted.

Recording Gaucho was apparently a tortuous process.

Mark Knopfler described his experience of 10 takes for a short solo on ‘Time Out of Mind’ as ‘like getting into a swimming pool with lead weights tied to your boots’.

I love Larry Carlton’s solo on ‘Third World Man’ from Gaucho.

Many of my favourite albums were recorded ‘live’ in the studio without overdubs.


I don’t think you can beat the spontaneity and feel of recordings made that way.

Last night I enjoyed a very rare live music experience; I saw Chris Leslie ( who has played with Fairport Convention and Ian Anderson) in a tiny local venue with no amps and no mics.

It was very special.

I spoke to Chris at the interval and he said that you can’t beat a true ‘acoustic’ performance in a small, intimate venue.

The event was sold out, with about 60 people in the audience.

A memorable night.

 

[Paladin79]

My results are in on the standard tubes I tested for the Vali 3. All tests were blind and I found out which tube was which after the sixth tube was evaluated. Max points 100.

Order of finish by score.

WE 396A. 96
GE 5 star 5670. 93
GE JAN 5670W. 92
GE Yellow Top. 87
CBS 2C51. 83
Russian 6N3P. 80

The bottom three tubes scored lower in such categories dynamic range, timbre, micro details etc.

 

[JamminVMI]

One location there (Sturbridge), another is in Tewksbury (which is much closer to me…. Grin)

Lol! I’ve only had the pleasure of the Sturbridge location.

 

[LobalWarming]

My results are in on the standard tubes I tested for the Vali 3. All tests were blind and I found out which tube was which after the sixth tube was evaluated. Max points 100.

Order of finish by score.

WE 396A. 96
GE 5 star 5670. 93
GE JAN 5670W. 92
GE Yellow Top. 87
CBS 2C51. 83
Russian 6N3P. 80

The bottom three tubes scored lower in such categories dynamic range, timbre, micro details etc.

Great work! The Western Electric 396A Tube Sellers Association thanks you for your contribution to their ongoing excessive profits. Which they won't be sharing with you.

 

[Orange5o]

Giving my new Ania Pro cart a run on the new Kevin Gray AAA cut of Eastern Sounds

 

[Paladin79]

Great work! The Western Electric 396A Tube Sellers Association thanks you for your contribution to their ongoing excessive profits. Which they won't be sharing with you.

Tubes are worth what people will pay for them. I could pick that tube out of the six pretty easily.

 

[O8h7w]

Unfortunately, as I feared, experienced some channel imbalances testing this way...

Huh? I often run my Fulla 3 into the Piety and I find avoiding channel imbalance at low levels to be greatly helped by this, circumventing the gain-not-low-enough problem by using both volume controls. This goes to really quiet levels without imbalance!

Maybe there can be imbalance at the max end of the pots as well and you turned one of them to max? I prefer setting it so that the other volume control becomes maximally useable. Also, my Fulla goes quite a bit louder than normal line level, it matches at about 4 o'clock.

Fulla 3 as a DAC/pre is working great for me. I did some blind listening with a Sys and very well-matched levels (50000 count voltmeter) comparing the Fulla 3 (AKM) to a Modi+ (ESS). Piety, mostly low gain, HD650 only, sometimes (late nights) with an IEMatch*. The conclusion was that differences are tiny.

One was slightly more detailed but also just a tad more fatiguing, it turned out to be the Modi+. But even when I knew this I just couldn't tell which was which about a quarter of the time (music dependent to the point that I could almost say "with about a quarter of the music I listen to I can't tell", but not quite). About half the time I could identify them but didn't really care which one I listened to, about a quarter of the time I cared (but only enough to press a button, not enough to switch between them if I would have had one of them unplugged).

* low output from from Fulla into the Piety instead of using the IEMatch seems better, but I haven't tested this side by side, maybe not even on the same day

 

[sam6550a]

Tubes are worth what people will pay for them. I could pick that tube out of the six pretty easily.

I suppose that I should start looking for a 396A.

 

[Orange5o]

Huh? I often run my Fulla 3 into the Piety and I find avoiding channel imbalance at low levels to be greatly helped by this, circumventing the gain-not-low-enough problem by using both volume controls. This goes to really quiet levels without imbalance!

Maybe there can be imbalance at the max end of the pots as well and you turned one of them to max? I prefer setting it so that the other volume control becomes maximally useable. Also, my Fulla goes quite a bit louder than normal line level, it matches at about 4 o'clock.

Fulla 3 as a DAC/pre is working great for me. I did some blind listening with a Sys and very well-matched levels (50000 count voltmeter) comparing the Fulla 3 (AKM) to a Modi+ (ESS). Piety, mostly low gain, HD650 only, sometimes (late nights) with an IEMatch*. The conclusion was that differences are tiny.

One was slightly more detailed but also just a tad more fatiguing, it turned out to be the Modi+. But even when I knew this I just couldn't tell which was which about a quarter of the time (music dependent to the point that I could almost say "with about a quarter of the music I listen to I can't tell", but not quite). About half the time I could identify them but didn't really care which one I listened to, about a quarter of the time I cared (but only enough to press a button, not enough to switch between them if I would have had one of them unplugged).

* low output from from Fulla into the Piety instead of using the IEMatch seems better, but I haven't tested this side by side, maybe not even on the same day

Did not test this way, so not disagreeing with you... tested with each at max and adjusting from zero on the other. Most prevalent was left channel issue on lower levels on the Piety when operating this way.

Ultimately, I ended up going with a y split, so no biggie.

In fact, it just got here in the last hour!

Need to get it all loaded up for a better pic...

 

[Paladin79]

Did not test this way, so not disagreeing with you... tested with each at max and adjusting from zero on the other. Most prevalent was left channel issue on lower levels on the Piety when operating this way.

Ultimately, I ended up going with a y split, so no biggie.

In fact, it just got here in the last hour!

Need to get it all loaded up for a better pic...

That was faster than expected!

 

[Paladin79]

I suppose that I should start looking for a 396A.

No matter what the GE’s offer a very good tube for a reasonable price. Even during initial burn in it was hard to walk away from the WE.

 

[Orange5o]

Now that's a bedside stack! Kudos once again, @Paladin79

 

[bcowen]

No matter what the GE’s offer a very good tube for a reasonable price. Even during initial burn in it was hard to walk away from the WE.