Telarc Records To Stop Producing Its Own Records - Firing 26

**chrisy** · **03-09-09, 11:59 AM**

Sad news for the audiophile recording industry as Telarc, one of the first "audiophile" labels will cease production of it's own music. Will it be missed? Was it inevitable? How viable are "audiophile" labels these days?

Telarc, the Cleveland area audiophile record label, will cease producing its own music at some point this month. The multiple-Grammy winning record label's roots go back classical recordings from the 1970's. Today the company's president stepped down and the parent company, Concord Music Group, will slash 26 of the label's 52 jobs.

Michael Bishop, the engineer most associated with the forward thinking label, has left to start an upstart audiophile label called Five/Four Productions which will focus on audiophile endeavors going forward while Telarc is said be planning on "outsourcing" is music production.

The Telarc label was always at the forefront of new audio technologies when the major record labels were anything but enthusiastic for the likes of 5.1 surround sound, DVD-Audio and SACD. Today as Telarc changes its corporate DNA forever, the major record labels still only offer their music in low resolution, 25 year old Compact Discs or one quarter the resolution of a CD MP3 downloads.

The end of Telarc as we all know it is sadly predictable as audiophiles are becoming senior citizens having never inspired a younger audience to share the same passion for music. Today more people love music than ever as proven by the insane success of Apple's iPod and iTunes Music Store, yet the demand or even responsibility for labels to create music in high definition simply isn't there. DTS Entertainment invested millions behind DVD-Audio and music in 5.1 surround. Sony put even more millions into the SACD format. Both projects failed miserably. Today, independent audiophile labels are able to a few thousands copies of an SACD or CD title but even the best selling commercial audiophile records rarely sell more than 20,000 copies (excluding the hybrid SACD of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon which sold over 1.1 million copies). Pricey AV equipment, cables and lack of specialty record stores make selling audiophile music increasingly difficult. The lack of a video component to traditional audiophile music ignores the 3,000,000 HDTV sets sold every month as the heart and soul of mainstream user's AV systems. To compound matters farther, the lack of video leaves Generation X and even the younger Generation Yers without the video content that they know and love from formats like MTV, video games, DVD-video movies and the all-important source of entertainment in their life - the Internet.

Those who hold out hope for higher quality sound reproduction point at the Blu-ray format as a current viable option. While SACD was nearly almost a stereo - not a 5.1 surround sound - format Blu-ray can accommodate HD audio codecs that are far higher resolution than anything SACD could dream of. While DVD-Audio had video capabilities which was a major advantage over SACD, the need for upwards of nine cables, a new $1000 player and an AV preamp or receiver with 5.1 audio inputs to listen to a mere handful of A-list music titles left mainstream consumers saying "no thank you!" Today Blu-ray players sell for less than $200 in every electronics store in the world and the format with its one-cable, copy protection via HDMI good enough for the movie studios that has 7.1 surround for HD audio as well as HD video all on one affordable to produce disc. Why majors and indie labels aren't making, remastering and reissuing masses of music into Blu-ray is beyond me and everyone else who would re-buy their music collections to get the music in a HD format. The Blu-ray format has it all including 15 percent market penetration as well as the youthful consumer base built around Sony's Playstation 3. Artists fearful of piracy in new formats like SACD and DVD-Audio are worried about the lack of places to sell their music other than downloads. Blu-ray remains as a viable option for at least five to ten years while the pipeline for HD content via the Internet gets wide enough to accommodate more media buying consumers. In the mean time, audiophiles are left sifting through bins of filthy, played out LPs in what remains of dingy record stores trying to convince themselves that some how the high signal to noise ratio and lack of dynamic sounds better than HD audio because the majors are just too stupid to repackage their music in an HD format that people could repurchase their entire back catalog of music in at least one more time.

Sources: Telarc.com, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Go here to read the full story:
http://www.hometheaterreview.com/av-...g_26002976.php

**tonyvdb** · **03-09-09, 01:14 PM**

Wow, that is not good news. Telarc has always produced top notch recordings. I have many CDs done by them and even in the late 80's made some superb digital masters.
With the onslaught of downloading music and the new generation not really aware of the quality difference between a CD and mp3 files sadly this may be a start of a bad trend.

**chrisy** · **03-09-09, 05:41 PM**

Yes, the recording industry is already past the Bailout point, and the smaller audiophile labels really must be having it tough.

**deacongreg** · **03-09-09, 06:16 PM**

Quote:

chrisy wrote:

Yes, the recording industry is already past the Bailout point, and the smaller audiophile labels really must be having it tough.

This is a real sad day for me. Telarc has been making high quality recordings when it was not fashionable or popular to do so. I remember the early 1812 Overture recordings on vinyl, the canon shots were so intense, that this lp could only be played on the very best playback equipment. And this was vinyl, not cds!!
I was selling the early Pioneer Laserdiscs at the time. Truly, I wish I could buy out what I wanted in entirety from their Jazz and classical Catalog, before the out sourcing starts.

**tonyvdb** · **03-09-09, 10:22 PM**

Quote:

deacongreg wrote:

I remember the early 1812 Overture recordings on vinyl, the canon shots were so intense, that this lp could only be played on the very best playback equipment. And this was vinyl, not cds!!

I have the Telarc CD of that recording and it has a warning to not play it loud at first or damage will o cure to the speakers

its a crazy recording even now with some serious dbs in the subsonic range.

**deacongreg** · **03-10-09, 12:00 PM**

Quote:

tonyvdb wrote:

I have the Telarc CD of that recording and it has a warning to not play it loud at first or damage will o cure to the speakers

its a crazy recording even now with some serious dbs in the subsonic range.

Yes, i hear you, you are so right. I need to get that before the out sourcing begins. I bought the lp at that time.

**MrAcoustat** · **03-14-09, 12:41 PM**

Well if you like instrumental jazz you will miss Jacques Loussier Trio i have 15 albums of this fine trio and the sound well it's Telarc what else is there to say i was looking forward to new stuff from this fine trio this is the closest you can come to classical music if you don't like classic.

**deacongreg** · **03-15-09, 09:21 PM**

Quote:

MrAcoustat wrote:

Well if you like instrumental jazz you will miss Jacques Loussier Trio i have 15 albums of this fine trio and the sound well it's Telarc what else is there to say i was looking forward to new stuff from this fine trio this is the closest you can come to classical music if you don't like classic.

Really, narrow it down for me, if i`m going to make a purchase, give me the top 3 of those 15!!. And thanks in advance.

**MrAcoustat** · **03-15-09, 09:51 PM**

Ok Greg my # 1= Satie CD-83431 1998 # 2= Plays Bach CD-83411 1996
# 3= Baroque Favorites CD-83516 2001 # 4= Beethoven Symphony no 7 CD-83580 2003 i like them all but those are my favorites in all i have 15 Telarcs the only one that i am not to crazy about is Impressions on Chopin's Nocturnes SACD-63602 2004 for only one reason IT'S SOLO PIANO not the trio and you miss the other two at least i do here is where i buy all my cd's you can listend to 30 seconds of each track it gives you an idea if you will like it.

www.cduniverse.com

**deacongreg** · **03-16-09, 09:05 AM**

Quote:

MrAcoustat wrote:

Ok Greg my # 1= Satie CD-83431 1998 # 2= Plays Bach CD-83411 1996
# 3= Baroque Favorites CD-83516 2001 # 4= Beethoven Symphony no 7 CD-83580 2003 i like them all but those are my favorites in all i have 15 Telarcs the only one that i am not to crazy about is Impressions on Chopin's Nocturnes SACD-63602 2004 for only one reason IT'S SOLO PIANO not the trio and you miss the other two at least i do here is where i buy all my cd's you can listend to 30 seconds of each track it gives you an idea if you will like it.

www.cduniverse.com

Thanks, I appreciate that. I will definitely go listen, and get back to you.

**deacongreg** · **03-16-09, 09:10 AM**

Quote:

MrAcoustat wrote:

Ok Greg my # 1= Satie CD-83431 1998 # 2= Plays Bach CD-83411 1996
# 3= Baroque Favorites CD-83516 2001 # 4= Beethoven Symphony no 7 CD-83580 2003 i like them all but those are my favorites in all i have 15 Telarcs the only one that i am not to crazy about is Impressions on Chopin's Nocturnes SACD-63602 2004 for only one reason IT'S SOLO PIANO not the trio and you miss the other two at least i do here is where i buy all my cd's you can listend to 30 seconds of each track it gives you an idea if you will like it.

www.cduniverse.com

Ohh, BTW, a cd I just picked up, has been played almost everyday. Real mellow, laid back, with a big orchestra conducted by one of my favorite arrangers and conductors, Claus Ogerman. The name of the cd is "Across the Crystal Sea" by Danilo Perez. Danilo on Piano, Christian McBride on the bass, very nice.

You should enjoy this.

**MrAcoustat** · **03-16-09, 09:22 AM**

Thanks Greg i all ready have this cd and yes it's my kind of music

**deacongreg** · **03-16-09, 09:33 AM**

Quote:

MrAcoustat wrote:

Thanks Greg i all ready have this cd and yes it's my kind of music

Shoulda known!

Just so you know, big fan of the CTI days. Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, (still looking for Morning Star cd), Eumir Deodato, Don Sebesky, Grover Washington Jr. (His best work done during this time in my opinion)), Idris Muummad, Bob James (One, Two,Three, Touchdown), Stanley Turrentine. Etc.

**MrAcoustat** · **03-16-09, 09:57 AM**

http://www.musicstack.com/album/hube...s/morning+star

**deacongreg** · **03-16-09, 02:00 PM**

Quote:

MrAcoustat wrote:

http://www.musicstack.com/album/hube...s/morning+star

Thanks a lot. You gave me some options. I went to cd universe where I found some of his other stuff. But it seems Morning Star, is only available on lp. I`m looking for the cd, but I guess I`m outta favor there. But, I`ll pick up Romeo and Juliet,, probably the Best of from Amazon, but Morning Star is so beautiful, plus his version of the Roberta Flack song - Where is the Love is so beautiful as well.

Thank you.

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