Solo streamer

The Pittsburgh Symphony recordings with Manfred Honeck are examples of recordings that have too much dynamic range on my set. It may sound real in a concert hall, but in my listening room it’s overpowering. Impressive, yes, but overpowering.

@rvpiano I’m listening to Bruckner 9th. The loud passages sound like borderline microphone clipping. It’s the recording. Not horrible but this particular recording may potentially be a victim of loudness wars. It’s overdone.
So there’s not much you can do.

@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.