Reference Recordings


Am I the only one who doesn’t like the sound of the highly touted Reference Recordings.  While there are some exceptions (e.g. Prokofiev “Alexander Nevsky,”) I find the orchestral perspective on most of their discs so distant that the sound is muddled and sound staging practically non existent.
Anyone else feel that way?
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I really like the RCA’s as well. The Mercury’s not as much. The Mercury’s used 3 channels. For better or worse,  strictly 2 channel in my set up.
Just for fun I dug out Eiji Oue’s Mephisto & Co CD. I played it back on my Marantz 11S3 CDP. Sort of closed in and dullish - greatly reduced sound stage. I run up the volume - it improved considerably, but really nothing great. Then I put it on my Wadia CDP. At the same volume the improvement was huge, full stage width and height, decent depth but not with pinpoint clarity, but then, FWIW, I’ve never experienced pin point clarity in a symphony hall, even in Orchestra row seats.

FWIW my system is tuned ’warm’ (using tubes) and my ears are getting old. I suspect those with younger ears and a more neutral system would find considerable enjoyment in this disc. Generally speaking I’ve never heard a RR CD that was as good as the vinyl (On my old near SOTA system) but I found a lot of the older CD’s quite good. I listen to them infrequently but I do and still enjoy them.

FWIW, by way of making a point about sound systems - I used to have some Quad 63’s. In initially I found them cool and flat sound stage wise. Height and depth were on vacation. Then I discovered that they really opened up at higher volumes. Volume was what was missing. I played Opus 3’s ’depth of image’ it was all there just as it was set forth in their booklet (this was on vinyl).

For the record I loved those old vinyl Living Stereo’s - some of the best sound I’ve heard at home. The Merc’s were good, mostly enjoyable and some were really great but that was all on vinyl. I think most of the goodness disappeared on CD’s, RCA and Merc. On CD’s I like the Merc’s better, not so much the RCA’s if at all.

TMI, IMHO, FWIW.
I have found them to be fine, maybe a slightly distant soundstage but pretty natural sounding to me compared with listening in a concert hall from mid-hall.  Their SACDs with the Pittsburgh SO are very good in that format.   I would not necessarily think Johnson's miking is minimalist, though--I don't think he's ever been above multi-miking.  Telarc was more minimalist than RR..