Definitive Audiophile pressings

kafunis said:
I hope everyone has the Talk Talk , Colour Of Spring and Spirit Of Eden from a few years ago, Those are amazing records, the Laughing Stock is pretty good too, not quite up to the pressing quality of the others, There is a US and EU pressing, I think that the EU one was a bit better from memory .
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I'm listening to my new purple copy if It's My Life right now.
 
kafunis said:
I hope everyone has the Talk Talk , Colour Of Spring and Spirit Of Eden from a few years ago, Those are amazing records, the Laughing Stock is pretty good too, not quite up to the pressing quality of the others, There is a US and EU pressing, I think that the EU one was a bit better from memory .
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Spirit of Eden is fantastic! Highly recommend that Parlophone pressing. Laughing Stock was a Kevin Gray cut in the US at least on the Ba Da Bing label or something like that. I haven’t bought any of the newer reissues. It sounds passable but nothing special. Mine also has some weird distortion on After the Flood that actually sounds like Mark Hollis is singing underwater. Super bizarre and it kind of fits if I didn’t know any better.
 
MikeH said:
Ooh yea definitely slow down spending then 😂😂. I have quite a few One Steps now but am missing this, the two Bill Evans, Simon and Garfunkel and Texas Flood. Not sure I’ll ever find this one for even a decent price but let us know how it sounds. With how particular Fagen is during production I’m sure it sounds incredible.

i was watching the Classic Albums episode on Aja the other day and thought to myself how much of a pain in the ass it must have been to work with those guys in the studio. They would have an entire band record a song and the next day bring in a completely different band to re-record because they hated the first band.
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This is a good segue... What's the best pressing of Aja?

EDIT: That doesn't require a second mortgage on my house...
 
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Academy said:
This is a good segue... What's the best pressing of Aja?

EDIT: That doesn't require a second mortgage on my house...
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I haven't listened to loads of pressings, but I have a 77 UK pressing, and it sounds excellent. You can pick them up pretty cheap.

www.discogs.com

Steely Dan - Aja

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1977 Vinyl release of "Aja" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com
 
Academy said:
This is a good segue... What's the best pressing of Aja?

EDIT: That doesn't require a second mortgage on my house...
Click to expand...
I have this one and it's v good

www.discogs.com

Steely Dan - Aja

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1977 Vinyl release of "Aja" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com

It also reminds me for all the talk of Mofis, reissues etc I still rather like an original pressing. I was lucky to stay in the vinyl game when prices were low as I've got so many 1st or early pressings of classics for £1-5. I'm not that bothered by a bit of crackle; I'm always reminded of the John Peel quote (printed on my local's plastic bags): “Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don’t have any surface noise. I said, ‘Listen, mate, *life* has surface noise.”
 
Academy said:
This is a good segue... What's the best pressing of Aja?

EDIT: That doesn't require a second mortgage on my house...
Click to expand...
The good thing with Steely Dan is that in my experience, just about every older pressing I’ve had sounds awesome. They are one of those bands that out so much time and effort into making sure their albums sounded perfect that if you get a clean older copy it should sound great.
 
MikeH said:
The good thing with Steely Dan is that in my experience, just about every older pressing I’ve had sounds awesome. They are one of those bands that out so much time and effort into making sure their albums sounded perfect that if you get a clean older copy it should sound great.
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All I have is their greatest hits and even it sounds amazing.
 
Academy said:
This is a good segue... What's the best pressing of Aja?

EDIT: That doesn't require a second mortgage on my house...
Click to expand...
I gotta agree with the others, while I would love to hear the MoFi pressing, I have an OG that sounds fantastic. There are 3 albums that always jump in my head for OG quality on the cheap, Aja would be one, Brothers in Arms and I Robot would be the others, finding a clean OG of any of these isn't that hard and they're reasonably priced.

I'm finding the Quality over Quantity rule to have a sub section called "upgrade must be staggeringly better", because while I would love the MoFi of Aja, as stated, the early pressings are stellar, I really should put some money towards albums I don't have :)

This is what I have at the moment -
www.discogs.com

Steely Dan - Aja

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1977 Vinyl release of "Aja" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com


PS - There are always exceptions to the rules.
 
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AnthonyI said:
I gotta agree with the others, while I would love to hear the MoFi pressing, I have an OG that sounds fantastic. There are 3 albums that always jump in my head for OG quality on the cheap, Aja would be one, Brothers in Arms and I Robot would be the others, finding a clean OG of any of these isn't that hard and they're reasonably priced.

I'm finding the Quality over Quantity rule to have a sub section called "upgrade must be staggeringly better", because while I would love the MoFi of Aja, as stated, the early pressings are stellar I really should put some money towards albums I don't have :)

This is what I have at the moment -
www.discogs.com

Steely Dan - Aja

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1977 Vinyl release of "Aja" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com


PS - There are always exceptions to the rules.
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Agreed. I really like Aja but the MoFi is crazy priced most of the time and like you said, I'd be surprised if it's a clear upgrade for me. Early copies seem to be getting up there in price on discogs at least, but I feel like you can find pretty clean copies in a lot of record stores for not too much money. I grabbed an OG pressing for about $5 in NM condition maybe a year or two ago. I'd think any of the early pressings sound solid though.
 
MikeH said:

Black History Month!

Black History Month!
sundazed.com sundazed.com

20% off sale at Sundazed for Black History Month

And if you spend $100 you'll get a mystery test pressing for free.
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That's very cool, and I love them throwing shade, actually just straight up insulting United in their announcement page for the test pressings... I didn't bold that, they did. Hilarious.

20210202_104848.jpg
 
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