Solo streamer

@audphile1

I think you’ll find all the Pittsburgh/Honeck recordings are that way.  I don’t sense clipping. Just too loud; and the soft passages, too soft.
I’ll search for other examples.

No clipping but it’s overdone. Unnecessary for classical. 

OP,

You bring up an interesting observation. I am now listening to Bruckners 9th. Sounds great. To me the recording is doing what it should, the real symphony has a very wide dynamic range, to me it seems to be capturing that without exaggeration.

I had season tickets to the symphony for over ten years, 7th row center. And I would carefully listen to how the softest of sounds would emerge from the background ambient noise floor. Then the very loudest would nearly overload my ears. I would then go home and adjust my system to mimic it. I believe the noise floor of your listening room could be causing / contributing to the issue. If the noise floor is fairly high, then you are going to have the system cranked up higher in order to hear the very quiet sounds and consequently have it too high during the crescendos.

So, I would think it is the interplay between the ambient background noise floor in your listening area and the volume of the system. I would think the recording is correctly capturing the dynamic range of the symphony. At least on my system it sounds right.

Anyway, something to think about.

It makes me think of how my professor reacted back in 1988 when I took a music class as an elective. He put on a CD and soon ran over and had to turn it down before it blew the speakers, and then complained how he couldn't tell how loud it was just looking at these digital numbers on the CD player, instead of what he was used to, putting the vinyl on the platter and turning up the analog dial until he heard a certain level of static and pops. "There's not enough noise! it's too quiet!" 

@rvpiano there is something else you might try. Your CJ preamp is capable of 20 volts output. The Benchmark amp has three gain settings. Try setting the Benchmark gain to a lower setting. Hopefully it isn't already at the ~2v setting. Krell has been known to run one stage of the amp high into the next stage, giving the dynamics a boost.

Mick designer of Supratek believes line stages must have high output for this very reason. He realizes it won't be optimal for every amp and system, so the linestage as adjustable volume and another control for output voltage. My PS Audio S300 amp has an stage in it and 10db more gain than the Orchard Audio Stereo Ultra DMC V1 amp. I have to change the preamp to match the amp. Your amp is providing the same adjustment. 

Good luck,

aldnorab