Classical Candor‘s John J. Puccio gives a thorough look through the new Kansas City Symphony Miraculous Metamorphoses recording:
“It’s always a pleasure listening to an album made by the Reference Recordings team of producer David Frost, recording wizard Keith Johnson, and executive producers Tam Henderson and Marcia Martin. They never attempt to attain the kind of absolute transparency so beloved of the audiophile community but instead capture something closer to the actual sound of a concert hall, in this case Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, Missouri in 2012.
The sound is wonderfully spacious, dimensional, and dynamic, as you would expect to hear from a symphony orchestra at perhaps the eighth or tenth row center. While the stereo spread is wide, the miking is not so close that you’re on top of the instruments. Instead, we hear a depth to the ensemble, with plenty of impact and wide frequency extremes. It’s some of the most-natural, most-realistic, most-lifelike new sound you’ll find around.” —John J. Puccio, Classical Candor