New remastering of Steely Dan's Katy Lied review by Fremer


I don't have a turntable, but in this case, the remastered material is streamable. I did a bit of listening last night and it sounds a bit better, but it’s still far short of Aja, so there’s a let-down effect. “It sounds better” is not the sonic experience of “Wow, this is amazing.” 

Still, better is better, and I'll settle for better.

FREMER REVIEW IS HERE: https://trackingangle.com/music/steely-dan-katy-lied-uhqr-review

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Haven't seen a thread with this much overstated garbage in a long time.

Your criticism suffers from the same distemper as the sentence you're criticizing. Kinda invalidates it and impugns you.

Loved Katy Lied in high school listening via the single dash speaker in my 65 Impala... still love the album (Can't buy a thrill is still my fav) Any improvment is just gravy for me :)

Katy Lied, content wise, is one of my favorite SD albums. The integrity of the recording from the perspective of accuracy and resolution is there, as it responds very well to my tinkering around with bass and treble on my PEQ-1. I can make it sound excellent. Therefore it is not an inherently bad recording. On the other hand, the bad recordings that do exist out there I have a hard time making them “better,” if you will, with tonal adjustments. Honestly I find the clarity of the album quite good. Have not heard the remaster. 

I always loved the SD records; although I did burn them out a bit over the years. The UHQR KL version was purchased for me for my birthday last year. I just got it. Now, I am lucky enough to have some nice gear to listen to it on and I liked that UHQR pressing so much that I just bought the whole SD UHQR catalog. To my ears the KL UHQR version sounds much more balanced with voices easy to understand and much better instrument separation. I'm waiting delivery of the other albums. I must admit I wish the 45RPM versions didn't sound better as I like the "length" of an LP. But I must admit, they mostly do with most of these reissues.......IMHO  

I own the UHQR version of Katy Lied (and all of the other SD releases as well*). IMO, I may be most shocked and impressed with KL. I can't believe what a clean, distortion-free recording it is. The quality of the recording made me want to keep turning it up. Obviously, I'm a huge Steely Dan fan and I love this record. For me, the $150 for the UHQR was well worth it. 
 

*Still waiting on the release of Royal Scam