Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now
This BEYOND White Hot side one (A++++) of Pretzel Logic has nothing less than master tape sound. [Whatever that is!] Our Four Plus ranking is rare enough, but in this case it has the added benefit of conferring upon this very pressing the status of the best sounding Steely Dan recording we have ever heard.
There is no better recording in the Steely Dan catalog, and I don’t think there’s a copy anywhere that’s any better than this on side one. (To see what we consider to be the single best sounding album from two hundred(!) other artists, please click here.)
UPDATE 2026
- Note that only one side on this pressing was actually any good. Side two earned a sub-Hot Stamper grade of 1+. We no longer sell records with grades that low.
- In 2011 we still had a lot to learn about Pretzel Logic, but this copy sure had us fired up at the time, and that’s a good thing, right?
- Our lengthy commentary entitled outliers and out-of-this-world sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how we go about finding them.
- We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.
- Nowadays we most often place them under the general heading of breakthrough pressings. These are records that, out of the blue, revealed to us sound of such high quality that it changes our undertanding of the recording itself.
- We found ourselves asking “Who knew?” Perhaps a better question might have been “How high is up?”
This Beyond White Hot Pretzel Logic has got it all: tons of energy, mindblowing transparency, uncanny presence, and lots of deep bass. We feel Pretzel Logic is the band’s best sounding recording, and here’s a copy that will show you why.
There’s lots of room around the drums, texture to the bass, breath to the vocals, and weight to the bottom end. The clarity is unbelievable and the overall sound is HUGE! The piano sounds AMAZING and the top end is silky sweet. It’s more open and more alive than you could ever imagine.
We’ve been playing this record since it came out in 1973 and this is the first “Four Plus” A++++ grade we have ever awarded it. The sound is Demo Disc quality of the highest order.
From the moment you drop the needle on side one, you’ll notice incredible presence and energy — bet your old copy doesn’t sound like that! The bass is as tight as it gets for this album, and the highs are as silky sweet as they come. The sound is very clean and clear, and the bottom end is punchy with great WHOMP. The big, bold, SUPER TRANSPARENT sound JUMPS out of the speakers and fills the room. I can’t imagine you’ve ever heard such transparent, spacious, sweet sound for ANY Steely Dan album. The vocals and keyboards are Right On The Money, and the guitars will blow your mind.
A Recording Without Equal
This is one knockout recording. After having done shootouts for every Steely Dan title, I can say that sonically this one has no equal in their canon.
Which is really saying something, since Becker and Fagen are known to be audiophiles themselves and real sticklers for sound. No effort in the recording of this album was spared, that I can tell you without fear of contradiction. They sweated the details on this one. The mix is PERFECTION.
But you would never know it by playing the average pressing of this album, which is dull, compressed and dead as the proverbial doornail. The individual track commentary below reinforces the point. It’s positively criminal the way this amazingly well-recorded music sounds on the typical LP pressing. And how can you possibly be expected to appreciate the music when you can’t hear it right? The reason we audiophiles go through the trouble of owning and tweaking our temperamental equipment is we know how hard it is to appreciate good music which sounds bad. Bad sound is a barrier to understanding and enjoyment, to us audiophiles anyway. How can you like what you can’t hear?
Well, we at Better Records would like you to know that all barriers to the enjoyment of Pretzel Logic have been removed as of today. The side one of your dreams awaits you.
What about side two you ask? Well, the principle of regression toward the mean tells us that statistically there is very little chance that side two will sound as good as side one, and that is indeed the case here. It’s barely a Hot Stamper in fact.
Side One
A++++ Off the Charts AGAIG sound from top to bottom! On Rikki the chorus, the toughest test we know on side one, sounded better than we have ever heard it. Nothing was even close. That’s what you get with Four Pluses!
Side Two
A+ sound, much better than average, musical and the like but what a step down from side one! Some detail, not too murky, but nothing that comes close to the energy and scope of side one.
Is It Worth It?
Now does everybody need to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Pretzel Logic? Of course not. It makes no sense to spend that kind of dough unless you LOVE this music. You don’t pay that kind of money for a record that just goes on the shelf.
But if it’s a record that sounds this good and has music this powerful and involving, it’s well worth the hundreds of dollars you might spend, because you’re going to play this record for the rest of your life. That’s a lot of plays. All things considered, considering the kind of audio ecstasy that awaits you, it’s money well spent.
The person who acquires this album is a lucky man indeed. If that person is you, I expect you will recognize just how lucky you are about a minute into Rikki Don’t Lose That Number. You’ve heard that song a thousand times, but you ain’t never heard it sound like this!