Mr. Johnston (the previous honorable reviewer) is absolutely correct. He has seen Utah Symphony perform live and can attest to the quality of these recordings. I have the 6th in DDD and ultra analog which I thought was a bit noisier and warmer as opposed to the more analytical DDD version. To be honest, the differences are there for audio engineers and hard core Mahler fans who may be studying music theory - for my purposes I'm listening to a world class symphony conducted by Abravanel who demonstrates a very compassionate interpretation of Mahler's music at very affordable prices. To save yourself time and money buy the box-set of Mahler/Abravanel/USO cycle.

For the fireworks I recommend Mahler: Symphony No. 6 Tragic - Benjamin Zander / Philharmonia Orchestra from Telarc which is also well recorded and executed at a furious pace - to such scale that it sounds like a celebration instead of something tragic.

I was born and raised in Utah there fore I listened to the USO live more than ever on a recording. These recordings are marvelous. I recommend them to anyone that loves Mahler's music. These are on my I Pod for life. Not at all bad investment.