AttackChimp wrote: If only detractors point to alleged perfection of Steely Dan, then why do 'audiophiles' use Aja, Gaucho and The Nightfly to test new gear? It's not because they're huge fans. There absolutely is the perception that these records are perfect, and that's a product of their production.

Audiophiles don't actually like music.

(fwiw- Happy End Of The World by Pizzicato Five is my new gear test music. Bass thumps? good. Clear treble? cool!)

Would see a Steely Dan covers band played like Flipper (Will Shatter era).

Might join a Steely Dan covers band played like Flipper.

AttackChimp wrote: If only detractors point to alleged perfection of Steely Dan, then why do 'audiophiles' use Aja, Gaucho and The Nightfly to test new gear? It's not because they're huge fans. There absolutely is the perception that these records are perfect, and that's a product of their production.

I would argue that most Audiophiles use SD to "test" audio equipment because it was the nerdy shit that sounded fantastic to them when they were into in High School, because most of those audiophile dudes are like 60+ with a lot of spare cash for sound stones and shit. Those records ARE recorded and Mixed extremely well for the technology of the time and are great examples of what that eras recording/mixing was capable of because they had ENORMOUS budgets and the people involved cared a fucking ton about the execution.

I can never really get into The Dan for the most part because too many chords and the lyrics are baffling, but Peg is a jam and that is undeniable fact.

FWIW, I use Lime in the Coconut to test every sound system I ever build (live sound or just listening environments) because the midrange and hi balance, stereo spread in that song is perfection. Once you are Eq'd for Coconut, you put on something that has some good Sub like Blank Screen by Dead Rider and dial in your sub balance and you are done. Easy Peasy.

Carl wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2025 10:30 am Would see a Steely Dan covers band played like Flipper (Will Shatter era).

Might join a Steely Dan covers band played like Flipper.

I'd probably go see Sloppy Dan.

Wood Goblin wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2025 9:55 am
In 2023, the family visited the phonograph museum in Kanazawa, Japan. As part of the admission, we got to hear a docent demo eight or nine acoustic machines—a cylinder machine, an Edison Diamond Disk machine, and several regular phonographs with varying reproducers and horn configurations.

Whoa - that's a trip. I visited this SAME museum when we visited there in May 2023! I had no idea it existed, just stumbled on it when walking around Kanazawa and wound up having a fantastic time. The guide there insisted on giving me the full tour of the place, even though I spoke no Japanese and he spoke zero English to me for the entire hour plus I was there.

Steely Dan is great, Flipper is great, I thought we moved on from these conversations a few years ago?

Pod is my go-to "stereo testing" music, but I think to the point of others, it all depends on what you know best - for some folks, that's Aja!

Apples and oranges, using two really odd examples.

Other than as background music and maybe for a few cynical lyrics, I don't appreciate Steely Dan much at all. I will always associate it w/MOR cheese, but that's also a symptom of when and where I grew up, I'd imagine. (The dudes in the excellent proto-no wave band Jack Ruby seemed to like 'em.)

Flipper was basically perfect until about 1983, when they got burnt out and redundant. Those aspects of the band became exponentially more acute after Will Shatter died and, a handful of the initial circa-2005 reunion gigs aside, I don't care. Still the Generic versions of "Shed No Tears" and "Life Is Cheap" and the Public Flipper live take on "The Wheel" are indeed my ideal music, from an emotional standpoint at least.

(Although I much prefer Toiling Midgets in the SF ex-junkie punk-adjacent rock sweepstakes.)

The Ramones are great until Rocket to Russia.

As far as I know, nobody in Pavement attended an Ivy League school, and I dig 'em up to and including Crooked Rain.

Flipper, I guess. But I feel like this is a weird comparison to make.

penningtron wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2025 10:48 am

Carl wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2025 10:30 am Would see a Steely Dan covers band played like Flipper (Will Shatter era).

Might join a Steely Dan covers band played like Flipper.

I'd probably go see Sloppy Dan.

Yeah!

Four O Clocker, you were there a month or two before we were! We didn’t get the personal tour, but for the demo, they gave us an English-language printout.

It’s funny to think of the history of improvements in recorded sound.

You first get Edison making it happen.

By the 1910s, you have records that sound reasonably clear, if dynamically limited.

You get a huge leap forward in 1925, with the development of electronic recordings.

You get another huge leap forward in the 1940s and 1950s with magnetic tape and stereophonic sound.

And by the 1970s, you have sophisticated multitracking down to a science.

In the 50 years since then, you have much, much cheaper means of recording sound. But in terms of actual improvements to the sound itself, it’s really only at the margins. There’s no Great Leap Forward comparable to the ones in the 1920s or 1950s.

It’s not terribly surprising that Pink Floyd and Steely Dan still get used a lot for demos.

Wood Goblin wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2025 12:32 pm In the 50 years since then, you have much, much cheaper means of recording sound. But in terms of actual improvements to the sound itself, it’s really only at the margins. There’s no Great Leap Forward comparable to the ones in the 1920s or 1950s.

It’s not terribly surprising that Pink Floyd and Steely Dan still get used a lot for demos.

Yeah. Greg Norman once pointed out that a lot of the audio innovations of that period were made for movies in mind, which never occurred to me but makes sense: stereophonic sound, reverb tanks, etc.

Most anything reference-worthy to my ear was probably made between the mid-'70s thru the '90s. Examples after 2000 or so were almost always done using the equipment and techniques of those 70s-90s albums (some Albini recordings come to mind). I can even think of some examples where I know everything was the same from album to album, except on the later one they may have dinked around with Pro Tools for some mixing effects or overdubs and those never sounded quite as good (and were probably left with some regrettable bleep bloops).

The flip side is a band from, say, Indonesia can now make a pretty good sounding recording for almost nothing. Which is great! But it's probably not gonna blow any minds sound quality wise.