More of the Music of Steely Dan
We recently amended this listing. Scroll down to see what we have to say about it in 2023.
More MoFi bashing, but boy does this MoFi deserve it. In our estimation, it is tied with the Cisco 180g pressing (2007) for the worst version ever.
I remember back in 1977 when Aja was released. I was a big Steely Dan fan by then, having been turned on to their albums with Countdown to Ecstasy in 73. With each new Dan record I became more impressed with their music, from Pretzel Logic to Katy Lied to Royal Scam and finally on to this, their commercial breakthrough.
At the time I thought the album sounded pretty good on my plain old ABC original.
Then I got a copy of the Mobile Fidelity pressing and I thought it sounded much, much better.
Side two of the MoFi had bass that was only hinted at on my domestic copy. Wow! Listen to all that bass!
Sometime in the 80s, I realized that the MoFi was hideously phony sounding, and that all the bass on side two was boosted far out of proportion to what must be (I’m guessing) on the master tape.
If I May
How much bass is on the master tape is of course of no concern to anyone not mastering the record. The bass has to be right on the record, not the tape.
The song Home At Last has at least an extra three or four DBs added around 50 cycles. It’s ridiculous.
And that’s just the bottom end; the highs are every bit as wrong.