Nimbus Records go bust

Posted by: Chris Metcalfe on 25 October 2001

Apparently Nimbus have just gone out of business after over two decades, as I discovered when I tried to order one of their CDs. This is both sad and worrying, as they were one of the foremost CD companies in the 80s and helped to re-establish the classical repertoire in the UK. Some of my favourite classical CDs are undoubtedly Nimbus releases, and they also manufactured for other importan labels. What does it say about the state of the music industry? Maybe it needed the super-CD format which it seems will never really happen.

Posted on: 25 October 2001 by Cheese

And it is also sad to see that in classical music, the record industry will in the end be limited to two or three (or one ?) giants like
DG, Decca, or EMI - if some of those have not merged yet. There is something to be said about Nimbus' sometimes awful recording quality, but their artistic efforts were extremely valuable.

There is still Naxos, and Todd keeps our hope alive by describing some of their gems.

Cheese - may all beings be happy

Posted on: 26 October 2001 by Todd A

This news definitely bothers me. One less independent. The BIG question is who will buy their catalog? Hopefully another independent so future re-releases can be spared something like the embarrassment that the former Westminster label is now suffering under DGs otherwise reasonably good management. (I can’t be too critical of the company that just re-released the Karl Bohm Schubert cycle.)

I must hurry out to but the first disc of Zemlinsky’s string quartets. And possibly that new (oh, new, what sadness) Granados box-set.

Posted on: 29 October 2001 by Anna Tooth

Hi,

I just discovered that Nimbus recorded all their CDs using a format called Ambersonic. This apparently is similar to surround 5.1, but, I guess, never really took off (I hadn't heard of it til now). To hear the recordings properly, you need an Ambersonic decoder and if you don't have one, the discs sound bad, which would explain the "awful recording quality" mentioned above. If you do have one they sound wonderful, as if you were surrounded by the orchestra.

I imagine that this will put off any potential buyers of the back catalogue for future release. Nimbus refused to send copies to Gramophone as they got consistently bad reviews regarding sound quality down to the fact, I imagine, that Gramophone weren't listening through the required decoder.

Thought this was interesting,

Anna.

Posted on: 29 October 2001 by David Dever

Four omnidirectional microphones, right--one up and three at 120-degree axes to center?

Dave Dever, NANA