Telarc recording quality

Some recent Telarc releases have been a disapointment.

Your ears aren't screwed up, but there is some disagreement among listeners as to the sound quality of Telarc releases. In their classical recordings, their general practice has been to record principally using spaced omnis, which results in a spacious sound but loses some immediacy and pinpoint imaging that a lot of audiophiles like. I also find that some of their recordings can sound a little muddy unless the volume is turned up a bit. And there is something I recall about some of their earlier recordings that they were recorded in inverse polarity and sounded better (less bright) if you reversed the phase on your DAC. All that said, I find them to be one of the better recording companies out there on a consistent basis, and like most of their releases--they do seem to take better care than others in their recordings in not screwing around with the microphone feed.

Telarc as well as many other audiophile labels tend to be a
mixed bag. Yes, the nuances are there with a terrific S/N
ratio in most cases. What I often don't like is all the
close microphone effects which can bloat the size of instruments and voice. Sometimes the overall effect is
almost like a sonic carnival rather than an honest
reproduction. I will be interested in other oppinions.

For the most part, I like the Telarcs that I have, but they tend toward the clinical in my opinion and lack the PRAT that, for example, the Audioquests in my collection have in spades. I would tend to agree with Brouser that they can sound a bit unnatural. The Audioquests, though, are originally recorded in analogue and most are done live to two track; I think these two attributes contribute to a much more musically realistic sound. And, in my experience, the Telarcs do need to be cranked up a bit.