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What a great piece for Sam to share with us. As to the demise of Telarc, it is sad but a true testiment of our times. The folks at Concord should be ashamed, but are probably not. In an age were quality of recordings is dismissed in favor of MP3 crap, it should come as no surprise the industry turns, dismisses, and ignores those who cared about audio quality. We have lost respect for the music and now a lack of respect for those who did care is bound to follow.

I am glad for the Concord catalog, but this is a slight that needs to be corrected. The sooner the better. Let respect and civility reign.

I immediately felt a great sadness for Mr. Renner and his staff at the closing of Telarc. There efforts will be greatly missed.

Amen to your sentiments. Jim. Jason Serinus did post a note about Erich Kunzel's passing on his blog at the Concord website, but there was still nothing official as of the beginning of last week.

There is always the danger of a loss of corporate memory and ethos when a big company acquires a small one, something that I have worked hard to prevent at Stereophile over the years.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Yes, and thanks for that John!

nice post mr t.

to illustrate just how far we have fallen, i want to tell a short story about a recent purchase. i am a vinyl lover. i am also somewhat a cheapskate. i check the goodwill for records. i found a bunch recently. a number must have been from a collection of one person because the labels were good quality from the late 50's and early 60's; command, verve, mercury living presence. i took home a number of these. at any rate, putting aside any discussion about the musical content, these records sounded first rate except a little dirty which i can remedy. of interest to this little tome is that in the jackets (most had two sections, like a book) were very thorough descriptions of the musical tracks as well as descriptions of the recording process. one went so far as to show a diagram of where the musicians were placed and the micorphones placed and the type of microphone used for each section and why, for each of the 3 recording sessions that were held to record the album. these folks were obviously very proud of their work and justifiably so. the photography was 1st class as well. All of this great art and education could be had for $3-4 back then (i know about inflation, so probably $10-12 today).
jim, i know you know about these types of albums, but anyone who really wants to know just how far we have fallen should brouse a record store or good will and look for some of these old albums. the great thing is that many of these fine albums are available for next to nothing right now and many are in fine shape because the people that owned them took pride in them as did the people who created them.

I love reading the recording details..as a recording engineer, I find this sort of thing very educational.

I have only seen a few examples that are more exhaustive in regards to documenting recording details, those being the amazing

"King of Instruments", "Engineers Choice" and "Symphonic Sound Stage" all recorded by John Eargle on DELOS..those outline what mic was used, what polar pattern, how many, and just exactly WHY...also how he arranged the ensembles, augmented the venue acoustics, etc..

telarc goes into a little detail as does Reference recordings, but nothing like those old records!