I have the first one queued up to check out.
Do you think it could be a loudness thing? I mean, I have heard some pretty fantastic sounding videos on YouTube so I'm not completely shocked, but better than your lossless versions?
No. Anne Sophie Mutter is not an early music specialist.
To really enjoy early music like the Four Seasons does require that you select from an ensemble that specializes in early music, that understands it stylistically and can play those early instruments. The keys were different and at higher pitch, the stings were of gut and not steel. There were many instruments that were around then and not in use in modern orchestras, and many of the older versions of current instruments were very different, especially the wind instruments. That is especially true of oboes, of which there were a wide variety and the oboe de cacha producing a unique and interesting sound.
The flutes were of wood. The brass instruments were very different, the trumpets, and horns being valveless, and very different to modern instruments. For instance that performance you liked includes and instrument called a Theobo which is not included in modern orchestras. Also back then perfect pitch was cherished and there was very limited use of vibrato, especially by singers. Talking of which castratos were common back then. In recent years we now have an array of male altos. Some have a good falsetto. Some have had very good voices as children and have been trained to preserve their voices through puberty. They have a more penetrating edge to the voice than female contratos.
To really understand music of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and really enjoy it requires it to be played by early music specialists. Fortunately there are many of these in Europe, and now the US. Apollo's Fire out of Cleveland being a particularly good example, and among the best in the world. Europe has numerous first class ensembles through out the UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and now Poland and other Eastern European countries.
Take a look at these.
There is a whole world of music to appear out there.
Even as late as Mozart, if you take his clarinet concerto, the modern instruments can not play it properly and unless you use an older instrument copy you have to leave out a lot of the bass notes, or as usually done transpose them higher.
Berlioz was particularly fond of the ophicleide, which is not in the modern orchestra.
There are a vast array of wonderful instruments out there, that most do not know about.