Classical Court

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (B) on September 16, 2021 at 10:10:29

In Reply to: RE: Jaap resigns from NYP. Not enough Star Power? posted by oldmkvi on September 16, 2021 at 09:42:24

He had a couple of in-concert Beethoven-symphony performances (5 and 7) released on the Decca label - rather poorly recorded IMHO. Here's what I posted on Amazon three years ago:

This album, which I downloaded in its hi-rez 24/96 incarnation from a major commercial download site, features some of the worst sound quality I've heard on a modern recording in a LONG time. None of the strings have any of the characteristic chiff to their sound, and the violins in particular are often woefully lacking in the balance, at least as I hear it. In addition, there's a general tubbiness in the bass frequencies. The performances sound like they might be fairly interesting, but the engineering sounds like it came from the early 50's or even the late 40's. . . ugh!

Whenever something like this happens, I begin to wonder if my audio system is somehow at fault, even though it's reasonably high-end. However, another poster on the Audio Asylum site, where this post first appeared yesterday, agreed with my assessment of this album. It's hard to believe that a major company like Decca would offer this kind of low-quality engineering on a classical recording in this day and age.