Fagen, Donald - THE NIGHTFLY [DVD-A/SACD-JAPAN]

[Chris Gerhard]

I just received this DualDisc DVD-A. I now have Fagen's 3 solo DVD-A's and "Gaucho" and I am really impressed with these discs. A solid 9 for this one and I would have to really think about which of the 4 is my favorite but this one has to be close. Everybody involved including Warner has done a great job.

Chris

[JonUrban]

Hmmm. Nightfly DualDisc is a "test market" title - nice catch!. I don't think it ever came out for real. If you look close, you can see one of the test market Nightflys in our QQ banner, just above the Dolby Digital logo.

[Chris Gerhard]

Hmmm. Nightfly DualDisc is a "test market" title - nice catch!. I don't think it ever came out for real. If you look close, you can see one of the test market Nightflys in our QQ banner, just above the Dolby Digital logo.

I ordered the DVD-A four times and the DualDisc once, the DVD-A was cancelled all four times by the vendors. This DualDisc was new and sealed, it sure looked like an official release. Amazon Marketplace had two used DualDiscs in addition to the new one I purchased. As far as I can tell, the DVD side is identical to the DVD-A release.

Chris

[JonUrban]

I ordered the DVD-A four times and the DualDisc once, the DVD-A was cancelled all four times by the vendors. This DualDisc was new and sealed, it sure looked like an official release. Amazon Marketplace had two used DualDiscs in addition to the new one I purchased. As far as I can tell, the DVD side is identical to the DVD-A release.

Chris

Here is a picture of the original test market DualDisc. I purchased this one at a Best Buy in Framingham, MA during the initial test marketing a few years ago.

[Chris Gerhard]

Here is a picture of the original test market DualDisc. I purchased this one at a Best Buy in Framingham, MA during the initial test marketing a few years ago.

Yes, that is the one I have with the same sticker. I paid $20 including shipping although I had ordered the DVD-A at $13 including shipping several times. I was afraid the price might get worse. Is it correct that the DVD side is the same as the straight DVD-A release?

Chris

[Guy Robinson]

Just realized that I hadn't voted on this. It's a 10. Typical Fagen/Steely Dan production. Crisp, tight with lots of bass. This is probably his strongest effort even though I like Morph the Cat a whole lot.

[Dylan Berichon]

Does the DualDisk have a DVD-Audio surround sound track on it? Or is it just Dolby Digital?

[Chris Gerhard]

Does the DualDisk have a DVD-Audio surround sound track on it? Or is it just Dolby Digital?

Yes, it is DVD-A. Unlike some DualDiscs I have, it even has the DVD-Audio logo on the package.

Chris

[Chris Gerhard]

Here is a picture of the original test market DualDisc. I purchased this one at a Best Buy in Framingham, MA during the initial test marketing a few years ago.

The Music For a Song store in Branson, MO had the DualDisc when I was in the store this last weekend. The manager said he got 32 in and sent 29 back. Apparently he has a lot of Donald Fagen fans shop there but DualDiscs don't sell well for him.

Chris

[Bidkat]

Here is a picture of the original test market DualDisc. I purchased this one at a Best Buy in Framingham, MA during the initial test marketing a few years ago.

Was this ever released widely?
In other words, can I get one?

[Chris Gerhard]

Was this ever released widely?
In other words, can I get one?

I don't think it was widely released but I just bought the "Nightfly" DualDisc recently and saw one at the Music for a Song store in Branson, Missouri last weekend. It looks exactly like the picture Jon posted. The price there was $17.99. I do need to go back and pick up a couple of used SACD's at the affiliated Music for Less at another outlet mall in Branson. I will likely play golf in Branson Thursday weather permitting and could work out something if you want that one.

The Music for a Song store is at the Tanger Outlet Mall in Branson although I had only planned to go to the Music for Less store a mile away at the Red Roof outlet mall. I didn't check if they also had it but that would not surprise me since for some odd reason whatever company that is has two record stores in the same small tourist town. These two record stores have had a few used SACD and DVD-A's recently but are a pain to find in the hundreds of used CD's. If interested, you might call the stores and see what they can do. Hold it for me to pick up if they don't ship and I expect they don't. The manager at the Music for a Song store definitely knows what the DualDisc is and should recall his most recent conversation with me.

Chris

[Chris Gerhard]

Well the weather here was awesome, so I played golf today. I did stop by the Music4Less store and they had 2 unopened "Nightfly" DualDiscs. David Rankin, the store manager said he thought the discs could be ordered through the music4less website, but I sure couldn't figure out how to find them when I only briefly looked at www.music4less.com. The store phone number is 417-335-3890. He also indicated the same thing as the other store manager, they had a bunch of that particular disc available.

The stores have some other hard to find discs but I don't know if there is enough business for one store, much less two so close together.

Chris

[rusinurbe]

Picked this up recently (this week) on the Amazon marketplace factory sealed and only £11. Thats abot $200 current exchange rates (Shocker log ?)

I can not argue withanyone who has reviewed this title nice sound great mix, nice music better songs that Morph IMHO. Ill give it a 9

[Dylan Berichon]

This is a fantastic disk all around.

One of my most played.

[30+MrGAS]

just ordered on line at CC.

a cd,
and an mvi with cd,7pc

looking forward to hearing it will give rate soon.

[JonUrban]

just ordered on line at CC.

a cd,
and an mvi with cd,7pc

looking forward to hearing it will give rate soon.

UGH! The end is near...................

[30+MrGAS]

UGH! The end is near...................

ok i'll go out and shoot myself,now....

[BananaSlug]

Amazon lists that it's at least got DTS 5.1. I have the DualDisc of this one and am not a Fagen fan, so I won't be buying these. If they were DVD-As I actually would have bought though...

[JonUrban]

ok i'll go out and shoot myself,now....

It's not your fault that Rhino has abandoned the DVD-Audio format for the (soon to be short lived) MVI disc. They are the ones that should be shot. Well, not literally!

[Chris Gerhard]

If I didn't already have the Fagen trilogy on DVD-A, I would sure buy this Fagen trilogy MVI. I think it is a dumb name and I don't know if it is correct to say it includes stereo DVD-A's and surround DVD-V's or what, but I consistently like the Warner releases of my favorite music whether DVD-A or DVD-V. I would have preferred they continued with DVD-A's, stereo and surround included, but I accept Warner makes business decisions based on market response. It should be clear to everybody that DVD-A didn't sell very well and blaming Warner for that doesn't make sense to me. We still have hope Warner will get behind whatever next generation format prevails and give music on high resolution another shot in a year or two.

The Fagen trilogy is among maybe 10 high resolution discs I own that I have played more than once in the last year. I have a collection of discs with each being played around once a year on average. "Nightfly" is still my favorite of the three but all are great.

Chris

[splinter7]

It should be clear to everybody that DVD-A didn't sell very well and blaming Warner for that doesn't make sense to me.
Chris

They didn't bother to do too much marketing of the format either.
The electronics makers did more to push the format than any label did.

[JonUrban]

It should be clear to everybody that DVD-A didn't sell very well and blaming Warner for that doesn't make sense to me.
Chris

Chris,

You are tireless in your defense of Sony and WB's pocketbooks. You seem to forget that because of their past decisions, it was OUR pocketbooks that were affected. Theirs is of little importance to me.

PS - I don't really have a pocketbook. Really, I don't!

[Kazaam]

Here's a link to a Sound & Vision 'bitstream' Blog where Ken Richardson briefly discusses the Nightfly Trilogy MVI that is coming out this month.

Please allow me to ask for forgiveness in advance for further propagating MVI talk on this DVD-Audio review thread, but... I'm torn when it comes to buying this MVI release. I find absolutely no value in the MVI other than the DTS 5.1 tracks. I'm not a huge Donald Fagen fan; thus, I never bought "The Nightly" or "Kamakiriad" DVD-Audios back when they were readily available for reasonable prices. I can probably still find "Morph" on true DVD-A for $20.00, which makes the prospect of spending $50-plus for a lesser-quality DTS mix a little bit harder to swallow seeing as I have no use for built-in MP3s when a regular CD is included and also since I have no use for a ringtone generator. That said, I've been enjoying some of the old-school DTS 5.1 Music Discs lately, and they are indeed enjoyable. I might have to bite the bullet despite my belief that Rhino is doing this release wrong.

[Chris Gerhard]

They didn't bother to do too much marketing of the format either.
The electronics makers did more to push the format than any label did.

That is basically the position I see repeated here, Warner, Sony and the rest of the companies did a poor job marketing the formats and a poor job marketing the individual releases. Now they should continue to release many titles, it is either owed to us or the formats will eventually catch on, I guess is the belief. I accept, no profits had to eventually result in few or no releases, it is just a business decision so I remain unconvinced of the common position expressed here, and believe more money spent marketing SACD and DVD-A would have meant nothing but greater losses. I think the quality from Warner and Sony was outstanding, the market chose not to buy the product. Lots of good products never find a market and it is rarely because of a poor marketing plan. Did the same companies have a poor marketing plan for CD or DVD or the PS2? Those products were great successes but I recall nothing special about the marketing, I recall people discussing the products because they filled a need and were improvements over what preceeded them and it was clear and easy to see.

Mainstream consumer audio/video formats evolving into something better that takes over the market is really rare, I can't think of a single example where the improvement evolved into anything other than a niche market. JVC tried to evolve VHS into SVHS then D-VHS, both were never more than niche products. CD evolving into SACD or DVD-A resulted in two niche products. Now we are seeing DVD evolving into Blu-ray and HD DVD. The lines are sort of blurred with CD and DVD since SACD and DVD-A are based on DVD media because of its greater capacity, but clearly from a market development plan, both were mostly seen to be a potential replacement to CD more than DVD.

One thing I don't understand is why some products can work as small niche markets and others can't. For some reason LP buyers will pay high prices to keep that niche market going. High prices for SACD and DVD-A because the market is so small apparently means basically no sales. With SACD and DVD-A, the format war may have stalled the ability for either to succeed as a small niche product.

Chris

[Kazaam]

I have often said that I'd be willing to pay a slight premium to keep high-quality 5.1 releases coming. I would gladly fork over $35.00 if BSM would decide to release some new hi-rez DVD-Audio material. I'd expect the quality to be superb, though. Let's start with some of those finished mixes of Fleetwood Mac's S/T and "Tusk" albums!

That said, I feel quite good about my efforts in trying to help high-rez, multi-channnel DVD-Audio/SACD succeed. I probably bought most everything out there and I always tried to get more folks interested in it by posting threads on new equipment and new albums. (Heck, I'll probably buy the Nightfly trilogy even though it hurts me in that it lacks hi-rez.) I don't think the entire marketing process was perfect, but there were indeed some decent efforts. And, yes, the average consumer is more interested in MP3 than 5.1 surround sound. However, I believe 5.1 surround sound albums is very capable of being a viable niche market if done properly.

Give us DVD-Audio. It has robust copy protection that should protect intellectual property from illegal copying. Do quality mixes from quality artists and charge a price that will make a small enough profit. Sell these items primarily via audiophile on-line retailers (acousticsounds) or direct-to-consumer (as in Becausesoundmatters or Hip-O Select.) Be sure to advertise the new releases by sending out promo copies to the media at magazines such as Sound & Vision. As for the product itself? Don't bother to include a hi-rez stereo version if the companies are concerned about these DVD-Audios cannibalizing regular stereo CD sales. I don't even need to have MP3's included, as in MVI. Sure, some kind of CD compatibility would be nice in order to transfer music to the ol' iPod; but I'm willing to double-dip and buy a separate CD if it meant we could have a sustainable market for multichannel music.

At least those are my thoughts as of right now. I'm not saying it's perfect, but just some random thoughts about how things might could work.

P.S. - And, of course, I'll certainly let the Steve Wilsons and others with the contractual ability and the desire to continue releasing 5.1 music directly via their band's websites.