Reference Recordings

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..

As for the ‘50’s RCA and Mercury reissues on CD, I find the latter to be consistently fine sounding, but the former to be of very uneven sound quality.

An exception to the usual distant RR sound is a new recording of Beethoven’s 9th with Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony. Streaming on Idagio, the Reference immediate sound seems spectacularly suited to the piece.
(Does the exception prove the rule? NO, that’s a stupid expression.)

In listening further, it seems to me that the Minnesota Orchestra recordings do have a recessed quality not found on the others.  I still get a soundstage, but it does have a distant perspective.  I'd be curious how much the hall has to do with that--perhaps Schubert, who I believe lives in Minneapolis, has heard the orchestra in that hall and could chime in.  The new recordings from Pittsburgh and Kansas City are really good. and quite different in perspective., as were the recordings from Dallas.