Telarc recordings

Newbee, I would take issue with your broad statement about Decca recordings. The Decca recordings from the late 50's through the early 70's are some of the greatest examples of orchestral and opera recordings in natural sounding, correctly captured acoustic environment sonics that we have. I'd be happy to offer some suggestions offline for you to consider, but any of the reissues listed in the Speakers Corner catalog will illustrate this.

Of course, there is also the London/Decca Phase Four series, which is unnatural multi-miked sound at its worst extreme. :-)
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Rushton, I did say that Decca had SOME excellent stuff and a couple of GREAT engineers! Those recordings bracketing 1960 +/- 5 years were often excellent, but IMHO outside of that time frame they were less consistently so. Lots of multi miking going on then. Do you recall who invented the Decca Tree(?), it wasn't Wilkinson was it?

Newbee, thanks for clarifying your comment. I totally agree about the golden years of 1956-1965 or so. As the to Decca tree, Wilkinson was involved, but so was Gordon Parry. And Wilkinson also ended up using some additional mikes over the years.

Still, there are a number of Decca recordings up through the early 70's are marvelous. Consider:

Varese, Arcana/Integrales/Ionisation, Mehta/LAPO, 1971
Holst, Planets, Mehta/LAPO, 1971
Beethoven, 9th Sym, Solti/CSO 1972
Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Solti/CSO 1974
Prokofiev, Sym 6, Weller/LondonPO 1975
Respighi, Pines of Rome, Maazel/Cleveland 1975

But I suppose I shouldn't hijack Dazzdax's thread further on this offshoot.

To get on topic with the question, I agree with Dazzdax's sentiment that the Telarcs sound veiled. To me, even their early LPs sound like they have an electronic haze to them as thought the signal has been routed through too many miles of cable and too many layers of mixing board. None of the Decca's we've mentioned sound that way.
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For CDs, there are many Decca recordings in the 80s (not just in the "Golden Years") that are sonically excellent; if not in the demonstration quality bracket. For example, some of the MSO recordings with Charles Dutoit are very good (Ravel, Bizet etc) and Dohnanyi (Dvorak etc). The problem with Telarc recordings is that they often have a recessed sound- lacking in detail- (blame it on the over-hyped monster cables- kidding aside- they lack the last ounce of definition and vivacity). For example Dohnanyi's Beethoven cycle. Even Telarc jazz possess some of that quality (some of the recordings with Oscar Peterson and Jacques Loussier). There is a certain enhanced bloom that seems to obsure the detail a little. However on a really excellent playback system, the recordings do sound better than the initial first impression- actually all the detail is all there- it just has to be picked up properly. The better your equipment, the better Telarc discs sound. Telarc's "Super Bass" along with some of Kunzel's recording of film scores and Frederick Fennell's are some of the best Telarc demonstration-quality discs. At the same time I am not that enamoured with the DSD system (Telarc uses this quite often)- in my opinion many of Chesky recordings, and especially XRCDs far surpass the artificialness of DSD recordings.

I tend to agree with Newbee and others here. Telarc does not go for immediate sound, relying on spaced omnis for their principal recording mikes (at least in the old days), which results in a spacious sound but without the pinpoint imaging that you get with more spot mikes. I think that's a principal reason for the veiled/opaque sound you're referring to. Interestingly, it seems that the louder you play a Telarc recording, the better it sounds, don't ask me why. And I concur that the better gear you have, the better a Telarc recording sounds--I've noticed this as my system has evolved. I tend to like Telarc recordings (some of their SACDs are superb), though my speaker system, which is a quasi-omni and very wide-dispersion, may be tailor-made for their recording philosophy.