Ugh. None of the sources in my house sound significantly different. I tried both my portables (Panasonic SL-SX270, Sony D-242CK), the crappy Sony 5 disc changer, the JVC DVD player (Cheap one), played through DVD-rom on PC, through digital out to Yamaha HTR-5440 and I got the distortion every single time. I even tried it on a crappy Aiwa minisystem and a CD boombox that was hanging around. Most with my KSC-50s.
The specific song it is happening on is Uranus, around the 3-4 minute mark it is worst, where the timpani are used a lot, and they just entirely break up. It sounds like complete crap. Well, if I have to go out tonight I will bring the CD and my KSC-50s and run into Tweeter, and check it out on a couple of their players. But, I am getting a feeling the distortion is in fact there, very badly, on the recording. And I am listening at extremely low volume levels when I test this passage to make sure the amp isn't overloaded, with easy to drive headphones, all at a barely audible level. The HD600s sound no better regarding the distortion either.
This recording gets extremely loud, it has a huge dynamic range, so I still wouldn't be surprised if it is just the crappy CD players I am using, but I don't hear a significant difference in the distortion from player to player.
The timpani in this Holst recording are much louder then the ones I have in a recording of Bethoven's 9th, and much more impactful, which leads me to believe moreso the CD itself could be clipping. Argh.
Argh, this is really annoying.
Is Telarc a good label? I mean they even listed the equipment they used which I find highly unusual.
