Telarc Surround Sound CDs

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I've 3 of the "Hiromi" SACDs and they are all superb in surround. Telarc really led the way back in the day, these Surround Sound CDs even in the early days of surround on shiny disc were excellent, I commend them to QQ members looking to expand their surround horizons :)

The Hiromi SACDs are interesting since Telarc's Chief Engineer Michael Bishop was also the Co-Producer with Hiromi on the albums in addition to engineering and mastering them !
 
The Hiromi SACDs are interesting since Telarc's Chief Engineer Michael Bishop was also the Co-Producer with Hiromi on the albums in addition to engineering and mastering them !

talented fellow that Michael Bishop and a bit of a latter-day (?) surround music hero (y) he is also namechecked on practically every one of the Telarc "Surround Sound" CDs I own as either "Recording Engineer" or "Editor" with the notable exception of the "Spies - By Way Of The World" Surround Sound CD which does not credit him in any capacity.
 
talented fellow that Michael Bishop and a bit of a latter-day (?) surround music hero (y) he is also namechecked on practically every one of the Telarc "Surround Sound" CDs I own as either "Recording Engineer" or "Editor" with the notable exception of the "Spies - By Way Of The World" Surround Sound CD which does not credit him in any capacity.

Yes, Michael Bishop started with Quad mixing in the 1970's Quad Era and then continued his work in that arena while at Telarc with various Matrix Quad Encoding Systems right through to the Super Audio CD and DVD Audio titles that Telarc issued. And today, of course, with the Surround Sound SACDs being recorded by 5/4 Productions. A real pioneer in the Surround Sound world !
 
man I love these little cuties..!!

I have some of these - nice Surround Sound listening via the Surround Master.

The Memphis Horns album in Surround Sound is a real treat.

Another to consider is Moody's Party: Live at the Blue Note with Bill Cosby, Roy Ayers, Christ Potter, Arturo Sandoval and Grover Washington Jr. (Telarc CD-83382)
 
I have some of these - nice Surround Sound listening via the Surround Master.

The Memphis Horns album in Surround Sound is a real treat.

Another to consider is Moody's Party: Live at the Blue Note with Bill Cosby, Roy Ayers, Christ Potter, Arturo Sandoval and Grover Washington Jr. (Telarc CD-83382)

Yes!! its great that Memphis Horns album! Featuring Bobby Womack, Etta James, William Bell, Leon Russell, Mavis Staples and Issac Hayes (who adds some Hammond Organ to the two Bobby Womack numbers) if an album with artists of that kind of stature were to come out now it'd be a huge deal!

thanks! didn't know of the Moody's Party! looks great! another one to add to the shopping list! (y)
 
Yes!! its great that Memphis Horns album! Featuring Bobby Womack, Etta James, William Bell, Leon Russell, Mavis Staples and Issac Hayes (who adds some Hammond Organ to the two Bobby Womack numbers) if an album with artists of that kind of stature were to come out now it'd be a huge deal!

thanks! didn't know of the Moody's Party! looks great! another one to add to the shopping list! (y)

Moody's Party is good - not quite up to the Memphis Horns album, but pretty close !
 
Hi All...
So the Telarc Surround Sound CD by Steve Reid titled Bamboo Forest Mysteries was made with a processor called the Spatializer.
How would this Telarc "Surround Sound" CD play back without a Surround Master? I'm thinking of acquiring the Steve Reid release.
....and for that matter, the other Telarc surround CDs?
Old thread here but I'm hoping someone knows. Thanks!
 
(Steve Reid's Bamboo Forest Mysteries

I had not played that CD in a long time
it does give a very real surround effect
I also have a RSS CD demo and some of the effects
with the Surround Master are as close to Quad as you can get
without encoding

Does any one know of other RSS CDs

Also Robin Hood (Prince of Thieves) is in Q Sound


Ron
Steve Reid's Bamboo Forest - Mysteries
Just checked this out on youtube, real nice smooth Jazz- thanks for the tip Ron.
 
I have some of these - nice Surround Sound listening via the Surround Master.

The Memphis Horns
album in Surround Sound is a real treat.

Another to consider is Moody's Party: Live at the Blue Note with Bill Cosby, Roy Ayers, Christ Potter, Arturo Sandoval and Grover Washington Jr. (Telarc CD-83382)
Wait... what Memphis Horns album Brian???
 
Wait... what Memphis Horns album Brian???

This one. Features the Memphis Horns, William Bell, Robert Cray, Etta James, Leon Russell, Mavis Staples, and Bobby Womack - among others! :)
Fun via the Surround Master.

41miynKxp%2BL.jpg


https://www.amazon.com/Memphis-Horns-Various-Artists/dp/B000003D46
 
(Steve Reid's Bamboo Forest Mysteries

I had not played that CD in a long time
it does give a very real surround effect
I also have a RSS CD demo and some of the effects
with the Surround Master are as close to Quad as you can get
without encoding

Does any one know of other RSS CDs

Also Robin Hood (Prince of Thieves) is in Q Sound


Ron

Steve Reid's Bamboo Forest - Mysteries

Thank you for this, just ordered

Regards,
 
How would these Telarc surround CDs sound played back through say an Oppo bdp-103 & a capable Multi-channel AV receiver?
...is it an ambient sort of effect?
I mean w/o using the surround master.
 
How would these Telarc surround CDs sound played back through say an Oppo bdp-103 & a capable Multi-channel AV receiver?
...is it an ambient sort of effect?
I mean w/o using the surround master.

Your 103 should have a DTS Neo-6 processing in its setting. You may want to try that. The result varies depending on the type of music.
 
Hi All...
So the Telarc Surround Sound CD by Steve Reid titled Bamboo Forest Mysteries was made with a processor called the Spatializer.
How would this Telarc "Surround Sound" CD play back without a Surround Master? I'm thinking of acquiring the Steve Reid release.
....and for that matter, the other Telarc surround CDs?
Old thread here but I'm hoping someone knows. Thanks!

Hard for me to keep straight all of the various matrix-based "surround" encoding technologies that Telarc was experimenting with on these mid/late 1990s CDs, @Imbobman: as Brian mentioned in the first post in this thread, there was plain-vanilla Dolby Surround (a/k/a/ Pro Logic, which evolved into Dolby PLII, PLIIx, and PLIIz), "Circle Surround," originally developed by SRS (there's a thread on this somewhere), and then the "Spatializer" circuit. One of the engineers here could speak to this with much more authority than I, but I think they were all roughly compatible and all used similar psycho-acoustic principles to create their wraparound "3D" effects.

You've already heard the consensus opinion: the transport you use for playback doesn't really matter. These are just regular RBCDs with surround "encoding." The Surround Master seems to do a great job decoding all three, but short of that, engaging the PLII DSP on your older AVR will work just fine. (I think it's still possible to pick up cheap secondhand outboard "Circle Surround" decoders, too, if you're really keen on that sort of thing.)

I have two of these Telarc "SurroundSound" CD's, both of them P.D.Q. Bach titles. One is "enhanced" with Spatializer only, the other with Spatializer and Circle Surround. The booklet for the latter claims you can get a "three-dimensional listening experience" from both technologies using two stereo speakers only and no special decoding equipment. But to "fully realize" the Circle Surround experience, it adds, "use of a Circle Sound decoder and a properly set up surround system is recommended." That said: the booklets emphasize that both Spatializer and Circle Surround are also "fully compatible" with Pro-Logic. I can attest to that. Neither of these discs is any great shakes, surround-wise, IMO, but PLII does make them sound more spacious, and once in a while there's even the illusion of some quasi-discrete activity out of the rear channels.

You've already had a look at the relevant sections of @Mark Anderson 's Surround Discography, yeah?

http://www.surrounddiscography.com/dolby/dolbyanth.htm
http://www.surrounddiscography.com/circle/circdisc.htm
 
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Hard for me to keep straight all of the various matrix-based "surround" encoding technologies that Telarc was experimenting with on these mid/late 1990s CDs, @Imbobman : there was plain-vanilla Dolby Surround (a/k/a/ Pro Logic, which evolved into Dolby PLII, PLIIx, and PLIIz), "Circle Surround," originally developed by SRS (there's a thread on this somewhere), and then the "Spatializer" circuit. (See Brian's initial posts in this thread.) One of the engineers here could speak to this with much more authority than I, but I think they were all roughly compatible and all used similar psycho-acoustic principles to create their wraparound "3D" effects.

You've already heard the consensus opinion: the transport you use for playback doesn't really matter. These are just regular RBCDs with surround "encoding." The Surround Master seems to do a great job decoding all three, but short of that, engaging the PLII DSP on your older AVR will work just fine. (I think it's still possible to pick up cheap secondhand outboard "Circle Surround" decoders, too, if you're really keen on that sort of thing.)

I have two of these Telarc "SurroundSound" CD's, both of them P.D.Q. Bach titles. One is "enhanced" with Spatializer only, the other with Spatializer and Circle Surround. The booklet for the latter claims you can get a "three-dimensional listening experience" from both technologies using two stereo speakers only and no special decoding equipment. But to "fully realize" the Circle Surround experience, it adds, "use of a Circle Sound decoder and a properly set up surround system is recommended." That said: the booklets emphasize that both Spatializer and Circle Surround are also "fully compatible" with Pro-Logic. I can attest to that. Neither of these discs is any great shakes, surround-wise, IMO, but PLII does make them sound more spacious, and once in a while there's even the illusion of some quasi-discrete activity out of the rear channels.

You've already had a look at the relevant sections of @Mark Anderson 's Surround Discography, yeah?

http://www.surrounddiscography.com/dolby/dolbyanth.htm
http://www.surrounddiscography.com/circle/circdisc.htm
Thanks humprof for your detailed reply, it was most helpful & interesting. I do not have any of the Telarc 'surround sound' cds & am curious as to just what is going on there.
Some of the confusion is because I'll see references from some sellers on Ebay as to dts in the ads but no such thing on the disc or booklets themselves.
I'll acquire a few of these & make a note of the Pro Logic & it's decedents for playback.
It's good to have this dormant thread back alive again! Thanks!

PS.. Also, thank you Simon A for your reply, much appreciated!
 
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I just acquired the Telarc "Surround Sounds: A Musical and Sonic Spectacular In Surround" CD sampler (CD-80447).

insert front.jpg insert rear.jpg

What I find most amusing about it is the range of encoding systems collected onto this one sampler. I was eager to see which system it was going to be in and was surprised to find the answer was "all or them". I mean where else are you going to find a sampler that makes use of four encoding systems (take a look at the symbol key in the lower right of the rear scan!)? I love a label that's committed enough to surround sound to have gone through all of those iterations (plus DTS-CDs, DVD-As, and SACDs - I have at least one each of these from Telarc). It's the only label I know of as having used so many methods. The only other one that comes close is Project 3.

Also, here's an excerpt from the insert.

insert inside (edited).jpg

All in all, a nice slice of history.
 
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