Does Steely Dan sound bright to you?

To be clear -- the effect I'm hearing is on Aja and Gaucho only. On Aja -- especially piano on Home at Last which is a bit shrill and much more on Gaucho, especially Babylon Sisters and other tracks on Gaucho which are bright. Again, mostly these are great sounding tracks but there is a harshness that is not present on other Dan/Fagen/Becker albums.

Other Steely Dan tunes and albums sound fine. Agreed, these are reference discs and that's why I'm raising the issue. Because if anything should sound good, these do.
 
@gosta  I suspect that Gaucho (and possibly Nightfly) crossed a line (accidentally) as the industry moved to digital. My guess is that this was recognized and corrected. There is a comment from their Scheiner or Fagen down below  on this thread (around the time of Morph's release) where they go back to analog recording. I've noticed that the brightness I'm referring to is NOT there on Kamakiriad, Sunken Condos, or Becker's albums. And again, as decooney and others point out, it could be the mastering or release for one medium or another that's at fault.

No not at all. I think that it might or could be be more of a matter of microphone placement.
I personally feel that the cymbals in "green earrings" are a bit forward or closely miced, shall I say?
But over all "Steely Dan's production has been above the average or accepted at the time .I believe that they did care about the sound more than other bands of the time.

Kamikiriad could be the best recorded work ever ... 

This is an interesting thread for me as I’m a huge SD fan for years. I actually believe that while there were issues producing Gaucho. It’s probably one of the best mixed and engineered albums of the decade. I know many sound guys that use this album for setting up PA systems for concerts and live events because of its dynamics and frequency range. It’s just so good. 

My roughly 30 year old original CDs do not sound unnaturally bright....  nor do the streaming versions on Tidal Hi-Fi.  On Qobuzz they and many other recordings seem somewhat bright,  etched or hard....  especially when dealing with remasters of remasters..