Walter Carl Becker February 20, 1950 September 3, 2017 was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was best known as the cofounder, guitarist. American Conquest Fight Back German. MQA, Donald Fagen PS Audio. The Nightfly it reminds me of my teenage years in which my Dad would spin his vinyl copy on a Dual turntable, through a Sansui amplifier and B W loudspeakers, and talk of how the Donald Fagen solo debut reminded him of his teenage years. This mustve been how I caught the good sound bug, albeit subconsciously. That was 1. 98. 23. Thirty five years later and my own vinyl copy of The Nightfly wears its heart on its sleeve. A pair of labels announce the album as a Digital Recording one of the worlds first and that Donald Fagen is Steely Dan. I wonder what Steely Dan co founder Walter Becker wouldve made of that. Hearing The Nightfly played on a Technics SL 1. G fitted with Zu Denon DL 1. Just as I remember it, The Nightfly sounds clean and crisp, perhaps channeling both the Kennedy eras optimism and Fagens notorious in studio perfectionism. The polished window vibe of. The Nightflys sound is likely why it became a favourite among audiophiles. Wikipedia informs us that Clive Young of Pro Sound News called I. G. Y. the Free Bird of pro audio. I play it because I love the songs. And because it reminds me of my Dad. Im Lester The Nightfly, Hello Baton Rouge. Wont you turn your radio downAnyone have any thoughts to share about the Pioneer BDP150 Universal Player for its audio performance in general and its DA conversion Does it. Flac The Nightflyers' title='Flac The Nightflyers' />Respect the seven second delay we use. How evocative those lyrics. As of yesterday, anyone with a Network Bridge II equipped Direct. Stream DAC from PS Audio can add support for full unfold of MQA up to 1. Hz2. 4 bit with a single click to the front panels touchscreen. The PS Audio update is pulled directly from the Internet and installed upon DAC reboot. Everything is executed automatically. Would be meddlers are advised to go make a cup of coffee whilst the Network Bridge II update does its thing. For many listeners, MQAs main draw card is hi res audio streaming at a bitrate only marginally higher than CD quality. The MQA Master file travels at 2. Hz or 4. 4. 1k. Hz with the hi res content folded under the noise floor. It is then unfolded by the end users softwarestreamerDAC just prior to playback. With a computer hooked up to the Direct. Stream via USB and playing Tidal Master content via Tidals own desktop app or Audirvana, we get only the first unfold, up to a maximum of 9. Hz. The newly updated Network Bridge II gives us both hi res unfolds. Recent remasters of David Bowies early mid 7. Network Bridge II to 1. Hz. With Tidal or Audirvana we only see 9. Hz. According to Team MQA and Tidal, the master is sample rate independent. Not all studio masters are hi res. The Flaming Lips seminal The Soft Bulletin lands at 4. Hz nothing extra to unpack. Ditto Kraftwerks 3 D The Catalogue 4. Hz, nothing extra to unpack. Donald Fagens The Nightfly arrives at the Network Bridge II at 4. Hz and stays there. Again, nothing extra to unpack. Here we might ask why bother at all with MQA Because MQA is more than hi res streaming. MQAs pre processing of the original master promises to correct for any time domain damage wrought by the original ADC. According to Bob Stuart, early ADCs, especially those deployed in digital audios early years, were less than stellar. Going deeper into Google tells us that The Nightfly was committed to the digital domain in 1. M digital encoder. The 3. M 3. 2 track used 1 digital tape and the 4 track used 12 digital tape. They both ran at 4. I guess 3. M wanted to sell you lots of tape. The digital audio was recorded at 5. Hz 1. 6bits. There were no 1. M system used a 1. Burr Brown converter and 4bits of an 8bit converter as gain ranging to produce the 1. The brick wall analog filters on the 3. M machine hand wound coils and took up most of a circuit board. Stata Software Torrent Mac Software. They sounded good. The biggest drawback to the 3. M system was the minimal error correction. After a couple of months working on the same piece of tape, the error count started to rise above the correctable level. There were adjustments on the front of the machine to fine tune the decoding of the data recorded on tape. You could adjust each track for the least amount of correctable errors and then transfer the tape digitally to another 3. M machine. You now had a clean error free tape to work on for a couple of months. The above Roger Nichols quote was pulled from the Steve Hoffman. Nichols was Steely Dans and Donald Fagens studio engineer. MQA source file correction can, according to MQA the company, improve the masters sound quality, irrespective of the MQA status of the DAC. Talking of whichTo qualify as MQA certified, the DAC itself would ordinarily host the MQAs minimum phase filter. This reportedly optimises the DACs performance when reading MQA encapsulated content. In the case of the PS Audio setup, its the Network Bridge II that was devised with consideration of the DACs characteristics. The DAC itself remains untouched. PS Audio CEO Paul Mc. Gowan says, As we have said from the beginning of this MQA stuff, we would NEVER change the DAC to fit MQA and we havent. Ever. And wouldnt. Did I say everFor the last 2. Ive parked my Music First Audiophile stance to listen to The Nightfly even though my mood hasnt called for it. What has This latest PS Audio update. The number of MQA titles presently available on Tidal is limited and Ive already covered Bowie. The Flaming Lips Not today. Lets go with an old friend. Firing up an MQA d The Nightfly is a matter of finding it among the Tidal Master. My preference falls to to Roon whose Signal Path confirms the stream as MQA content a 4. Hz file that requires no unfolding. The Direct. Streams touchscreen tell us that its seeing 2. Hz just as we expect. For users who dont do Roon, PS Audio have another surprise this weeks update adds Tidal support via the free to download MConnect UPn. P app. We figured it made no sense to go to all the expense and trouble of a full MQA unfold if there was no easy access to MQA Master files. The vast majority of MQA files available is through Tidal so it seemed this would be the perfect opportunity to make a complete package, says Mc. Gowan. I am pleased to report that MConnect offers gapless playback and its interface is quite a long way from awful. Once logged into Tidal, be sure to specify HifiMaster in MConnects settings panel, otherwise MQA Masters will remain invisible. For Pink Floyds The Division Bell, MConnect reports a 4. Hz file that unfolds to 9. Hz. And its this second number that shows on the Direct. Stream screen. For Bowies Young Americans, MConnect reports a 4. Hz file that unfolds to 1. Hz. Again, its the 1. Hz number that glows from the PS Audio touchscreen. Search results for Donald Fagen have us seeing double two versions of The Nightfly. The MQA version has the more sepia toned cover art and the standard 1. Hz for mobile devices. Does that little boxed M mean MQA Perhaps. Having both makes for a side by side comparison. A vinyl copy on hand turns this one on one into a three way. Downstream of the Direct. Stream sat the over achieving Rotel RA 1. ELAC Uni. Fi BS U5. Modest hardware compared to the DACstreamer. Listening to The Nightfly across three versions at 6. Questions because obviously Im not privy to what went down in studio in 1. Soundworks Digital AudioVideo Recording Studios and Automated Sound in New York City, and at Village Recorders in Los Angeles  or with Warner Bros handling of the masters in the intervening 3. Im not a Donald Fagen provenance expert. Are you Why does the MQA version of The Nightfly sound more easeful, smoother and less uptight between the shoulder blades than the standard Redbook version Surely this qualitative difference couldnt simply be attributable to an additional 4k.