"Even the recorded sound is pretty second rate and has very little dynamic range"
Fair enough, but are you going by the 'hi rez' download, or something lesser such as Soundcloud or Youtube? I've noticed that Soundcloud is definitely 'cloudy' in terms of sound quality. Truth in advertising, indeed.
I did purchase the 24/96 download from HDtracks hoping to get similar sound quality as the 3rd from '09. That was not the case. This recording is very loud. When played at my normal listening volume it was very, very loud. I had to turn it down. From some analysis I've run, it's not clipping, and does show noise above 20khz. For all intents and purpose it looks like a normal 24/96 recording, but something isn't right with this.
The recording itself is very close, too close for my taste. This may be why it sounds so loud. I also think they do this in Avery Fischer to try and bring the low end out, which this recording does have in spades. The bass and cello are very prominent. It also sounds like the string and winds are in your face, while the brass and percussion are distant. All around it's just a strange recording for me.
A good classical recording of Mahler should have around a 15-20db swing from loudest to softest. I generally listen to well recorded stuff, Channel Classics/Exton etc, at about 65db. This will peak me out at roughly 80-85db which is nice and comfortable. For this recording I was listening at 40db.
I wonder if this is really the .mp3 that the NYPhil puts out for Itunes, with some noise added and upconverted.
Topic: Alan Gilbert/Mahler 7/New York Philharmonic (Read 8222 times)