Beethoven Symphonies - best perf + sonics on CD

Well Brownsfan, after having read the David Hurwitz review, I am now skeptical about this Brahms Manze set. This was the first out and out criticism of the performances that I've read and while I try not to give reviews too much credit, I tend to side with Mr. Hurwitz on most accounts.
Damn those critics, they always ruin everything.
However, I do own the Marek Janowski Brahms 4 with the Hungarian Dances on PetaTone and while I prefer the Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra Hungarian Dances to that of Janowski and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the 4th is worth the price of the disk in and of itself. So I've made a final decision being that my next Brahms purchase will be the Marek Janowski Brahms 2 & 3 with the PSO on PentaTone. Yes, I know that I'm playing it safe here but because I don't have money to throw around, then so shall it be.
It's funny because I tend to weed through the western and central European groups first but here I am siding again with the Pittsburgh. How times have changed.

Goofyfoot, I get no enjoyment out of doing this, but I think the Janowski 4th is more to my liking that the 2nd and 3rd. I used the same reasoning and found the 2nd and 3rd a let down. Don't listen to that disc much.

Brownsfan, well thank you kind sir, you've just saved me $15.00 that can be put to use somewhere else. In fact I've had my eye on the Bob Dylan 'Blood on the Tracks' SACD from Mobile Fidelity.
Brahms is a tough composer to weed through seeing that many of the greatest interpretations date back to the 1940's. As a result, Brahms lovers can be set in their ways, therefore making it difficult for the newer recordings to live up to those previous accomplishments. I'm looking at my Andante Brahms Symphonies box set and the conductors on it are;
Toscanini 1941, Walter 1936, Stokowski 1936, Mengelberg 1932, Monteux 1945, Sabata 1936, Furtwängler 1945, Weingartner 1938.

I also posted on a Gramophone forum with respect to the Beethoven Cycles and was informed of the Mikhail Pletnev cycle with the Russian National Orchestra. Has anyone heard this set? What is your opinion of Russian or Eastern European academies whenever concerning the music of Vienna or of Central Europe? This is of interest to me in the context that many recordings made during the Soviet Union are just now being discovered by us here in the West.

Sorry cannot say...except that Pletnev on Scarlatti piano works is exceptional ihmo.