Boulez Mahler #8 on Deutsche Grammophon CD BUZZCUT! I'm shocked..

It's 'cause kids these days want their Mahler loud.

 

Quite a few recent classical releases are like that. That's why I don't buy them anymore

In defence of Bear Family, their new George Jones box with his Musicor sides (Vol.1) sounds good. It was mastered by Christian Zwarg.

 

Sadly, I am not surprised. I had bought a few newer Deutsche Grammophon CDs about two years ago that sounded wrong to me. Now I avoid their new stuff.

 

Wow.... and to think DG used to be known for their excellent sound quality.

 

The kids today want their classical music BUMPIN' while they're flossin' in their WRX on the strip. It's a Fast & Furious-type thing. These days, Mahler has to be slammin'.

What a shame. First a rumour about digitally-sourced Beatles remaster LP's, and now this. Just when I thought that things might be changing.

 

"Boulez, who is everything I don't want art to be... Boulez, who once said in an essay that he is not interested in how a piece sounds, only how it is made." — Morton Feldman

That may help explain a few things.

 

It happens on a lot of DG releases nowadays: http://audiamorous.blogspot.com/2008/11/think-classical-music-mastering-does.html

But honestly, I haven't heard any audible issues with it. 3ms of clipping on transients (as opposed to periodic clipping) is harder to get worked up about.

 

I think Boulez was talking about the composition, not the sound of the recording. Feldman is referring to the fact that Boulez is more interested in the creation of the score than how it sounds when performed, live or recorded.

 

I bought an expensive re-pressing of Bohm's Beethoven 6 on DGG (LP), and the sound quality was surprisingly bad. Even the pressing was so-so. I thought the German pressings were supposed to be superior, but not in this case.

 

Steve,

This industry needs a Slammy award dishonoring bad mastering moves. My God, Classical recordings maximized to death! Egad.

 

Not quite true , I just got Nikolaus Harnoncourt's reading of Dvořák's 8th symphony in G major, op.88, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam (Warner Classics 3984 24487-2) and it sounds great. It's a live recording from 1998 and the engineers were either German or Austrian.

 

IT IS NOT MAXIMIZED TO DEATH.

There is still a substantial amount of dynamic range on DG classical, even with the instances of clipping I have found myself. My Boulez CD of the Bartók piano concertos, clipped though it is, ReplayGains to +1db which is perhaps 6db quieter than even the most well-mastered rock. Another Boulez CD I have of Varèse clips a lot but also RGs to the +1db range, and I almost still consider it a reference quality CD. It's that good.

At issue here is specifically the clipping of the loudest transients, and the importance of them. It's obvious that such clipping would preclude a recording from being any kind of "reference" in quality, and I think it's unfortunate. But I think that given the dynamic ranges involved, and the relatively popular nature of DG releases (as far as classical music goes), it's mastering decision that is not indefensible. And it's entirely questionable whether such clipping is always audible. IIRC, Bob Katz suggests in his mastering book that for transient situations a few ms of clipping at up to perhaps 6db may not be audible. That covers all the DG waveforms I've looked, and matches my listening experience, insofar as I can hear some kind of difference - I don't have the Mahler CD Steve is talking about so I can't really comment on that.

Of course, actual dynamic range compression - maximizing in the more destructive sense - is rumored to be rather common in classical music mastering. I think this is a far worse phenomenon for those of us who want the most dynamic range out of our recordings, and that is not nearly as easy to detect. I can't comment one way or another on if DG releases make extensive use of compression, except to say that there still subjectively seems to be a lot of dynamic range in the CDs I've listened to.

Ultimately I think it's important to remind everybody that classical music never really has been the standard of audio perfection that many people think it is, that many classical labels have been guilty of juicing their sound over the decades, and that recordings with a truthful, realistic and uncompromised presentation of a highly dynamic performance will probably always be something of a niche market, and a "popular" player like DG is unlikely to cater to that sort of market. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all DG performances are to be avoided - I certainly would avoid paying full price for them though, whereas I could much more easily justify paying full price for, say, a Bis (which I have heard miraculous things about). As it stands I bought most of my DG through yourmusic.com and/or the used market anyway so I'm not sweating much over this.

On a related note. Words from experience: if you want a Mahler with high dynamic range, avoid LPs

 

That said, most/all of the examples of clipping I've found on DG involve Boulez one way or another, which is quite fascinating.

Boulez used to have a reasonably Facebook page I fan'd, but it seems to have gone private now. Bah. I was tempted to just ask him the question right there, but I'm not about to just ask him on a private account (which might be forged to begin with). He might have some insight on the mastering process, being quite clued on many technologies.

 

Recording and mastering classical is always interesting, to say the least. In my recordings, it's pretty clear that one cymbal crash can peak at 6 db over the rest of entire orchestra, leaving your average level really low. It's not such a big deal when mastering to a CD, but you'd better believe most Classical mastering engineers who worked in the vinyl days used compression. Even in the "Golden Age" of Living Stereo and Mercury Living Presence, the wasn't much more than 30 db of dynamic range on those recordings due to compression and limiting used during recording. Steve himself has even mentioned this, I believe.

The youth orchestra I used to work for had some recordings in their archives, including some vinyl they had released. They used the same guy to record all of their performances for many years. He was quite horrific. In his latter days he had a multi-mike digital setup, but was only recording to 2-track DAT or something, so he had to mixdown on the spot, with usually crappy results. The balances were usually horrible, with very little hall reverb.

In his earlier days he, of course, used tape, and he must have had a limiter in the chain. You could really hear it in one recording he made of the Verdi "Te Deum". At the first big orchestra entrance after the monastic chant opening, the limiter must have been set with too long an attack time because it ended up sounding like " SAaaanctus". Ridiculous.

But of course there are some wonderful sounding Living Stereos that used compression. I guess that's the difference between compression and hard limiting.

 

Boulez

Have you seen him conduct? I've seen him twice, including a few months ago in Chicago in a Stravinsky/Varese program. One of the best concerts I've ever attended. And I happen to like his Mahler 8 performance. It's the best of his Mahler series, IMO, most of which I did not care for.

Excellent post! The only thing I'll add is that there *is* a performance of Mahler 8 on LP that is to die for: Solti's legendary CSO Mahler 8 on King Super Analogue, mastered right here in California a few years back. No recording will come close to hearing it live, though.

 

DG ( or DGG) has been such a company since the first day....
The house sound was muddy peaky cloudy compressed and steely throughout the history.

 

So just clipped! Still something which isn't good. A note with DGG recordings, the best ones were USA originated. Those early 1970's William Steinberg/Boston Symphony recordings were very excellent. Much better balanced!

 

I don't know any about the Steinberg recordings, but some DG recordings made in the US of A from the period, including the Boston Pops with Fiedler and the Lennie's Carmen with MET, sound great for a good reason.

Neither the BP discs and the Carmen could be said as the DG recording. They were actually the US productions.

 

The Japanese pressing of this Boulez Mahler 8 sounds really good, but then again my system isn't as impressive as Steve's!

 

I only own 3 DG records.... and they all sound fine.

Steve... try this one:

It sounds awesome... one of the best classical remaster I've heard, and the definitive version of Beethoven's Symphony 5/7 (SACD)

 

I disagree, to my ears that one doesn't sound good at all, harsh/bright. I have the early DG CD reissues (Symphony 5: 415 861-2, Symphony 7: 415 862-2). There's also a hybrid SACD version that has both symphonies, but I don't know how it sounds.

 

I talked about the SACD... never heard the CD.

 

I see. I thought you were talking about the "Originals" CD reissue, because you posted a picture of that one. I missed the SACD reference.

This is the cover of the hybrid SACD:



These interpretations of Beethoven's 5th and 7th Symphonies are definitive in my opinion, irrespective of the sonics.

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