I've sent this around to a few local audiophiles, as to me it doesn't sound anything like a performance - a zillion mikes around an orchestra for hifi fireworks.
Its a rather short listen, curious to the forum's thoughts - here is one movement, but the rest are probably accessible as well. The album is on Tidal as well.
I liked it. I don't always listen to music presuming it'll be a faithful reproduction of a live performance.
Keith, you, of all people, should know a "performance" is what the artist makes of it, like Air or Frahm or Richter. If they wanted it to sound like that particular concoction, more power to them. Not everybody wants their (classical) music album to sound like a live performance.
Not liking how a particular album was recorded is fine. Not liking it because it's "fake" is silly. 99.99% of the music out there, today, is "fake".
my system does space easily and so this music plays to that strength.
i do get what you mean about 'fake' as the sound is not as open and transparent as classical music typically is. there is a bit of a processed nature to some of the less musical parts. like it was pieced together and things were added later. the more orchestral parts are reasonably transparent. i'll bet if i got the actual file from DG and downloaded that we might have a better result and more transparent and vivid. so maybe MQA is the culprit here. or if it was on Qobuz it might be a level or two more open and real.
later maybe i'll try the 16/44 Tidal version and see whether that is any better, less 'fake' sounding.
the other thing i would say is that this music might need a few listens before i get it......and it likely needs me to be in the right frame of mind to let it wash over me. sometimes the music reaches out and pulls us in, but other times we have to reach out and invite it in.
It sounds as if it was well setup to create that pleasurable effect. Fake, no, but artistically recorded and reproduced.
The music is soft/smooth, vocals are translucent, some sounds of instruments harmonize well surrounding your ears hard right and hard left. It's tasty, charming and charismatic.
i spent the last 3 hours installing my new Ortofon MC Anna Diamond cartridge (love it). i took some pictures, and am going to post about it. so i switched back to digital while i'm doing that and i now notice that this recording is on Qobuz in both 24/96 and 16/44. i'm listening now to the 24/96 and it's much, much more real and vivid than the Tidal MQA.
