I take your point, but as a general rule of thumb for somebody starting out?
I can't remember if OP is wanting to build a CD library of classical music, but if so, I will say that the historically major labels (Sony, Warner, Universal/DG/Decca) have been selling bargain CD box sets of classical music in recent years which can serve as an inexpensive way to get a lot of classical music 'basics' at very low prices and in a form which does not take up much room as typical CDs in jewel cases. For less than $20, it's possible to get recordings from the major labels of all the Beethoven symphonies, Mozart violin sonatas, Mendelssohn orchestral works, and so forth. For better or for worse, these are performed by big name conductors and the box sets often have the latest remasterings of those recordings which are often better than the masterings/remasterings used when those albums first came out on CD. The Sony white box bargain box sets don't have liner notes, but the Warner and Universal box sets usually do have liner notes as well and some of the Warner box sets even come with original album art as well.
In some ways, the historically major labels sell their music on CD for less these than the so-called bargain labels!
Don't forget that in many cases it's the big labels which have the great artists - past and present. Du Pré, Callas, Oistrakh, Rubinstein etc etc.
There are plenty of exceptions of course. I have a live Richter Mozart CD on Laurel which is just wonderful - it's quite collectable now. I really don't like EMI's ART era CDs - they sound awful. I have a Nicola Benedetti CD on Decca which sounds compressed and noisy, so go a long way to agree with you. But as I say, as a rule of thumb?
There are many big name performers who, IMO at least, deserve the fame they achieved. However, it should be noted that a lot of marketing money was spent by the historical majors 30, 40, 50+ years ago to make the big names into big names. These days, when the amount of money labels spend to promote classical performers is minuscule compared to half a century ago, there are a lot of performers who could be famous, but they just aren't to most people. Thus, my advice to beginners is to not get drawn into the idea that only big names produce music worth listening to or purchasing.
I know this can be confusing to beginners. If a beginner is wondering what streaming link to listen to or what CD to buy, my advice is to just listen to the recordings on a streaming service, even a free one like YouTube will more than suffice, and see which provide the most enjoyable experience. As beginners listen more with an open mind, they'll learn more about why things may sound different, but that can only come from experience and probably also some form of education from somewhere.
I sell CDs as well you see and that tends to colour the way I think about CDs. The label is very important retail wise, not least because the resale value of discount label CDs is almost zero.
I would have to agree with you that the big name performances on major historical labels will most likely have better resale value. Discount label stuff usually has very little resale value. I don't buy CDs with the intention to sell them though so this isn't so much of a concern for me, but I can see why it would be for you.
Naxos - okay, more recent CDs sound fine, but otherwise not in my experience. Somebody in the trade gave me box a load of Brilliant CDs a few years back - samples - I sold some, I kept some. I kept a Sibelius box set, it's okay but not a patch on my Von Karajan DG double - you know the one. They did sell well tbh.
Laserlight aren't great in my experience, I have a few Telarc which are are fine. Arkiv are excellent - a wonderful label - I love my Corelli double.
One of the things about Brilliant Classics is that I believe the company has changed hands at least a couple of times over the years. Some of the early Brilliant Classics recordings from the 1990s and 2000s were often rather dodgy. Since the company has come under the Edel umbrella (Edel is a major German media company who also owns Berlin Classics), the quality has improved, IMO.
Also, Brilliant Classics has their own recordings, but they also re-release recordings from other labels. In the case of the re-releases, the quality depends on the original recordings. I know Brilliant Classics has re-released recordings from respected companies like BIS, but they may also re-release recordings which might be of lesser quality.
One of the interesting things about Naxos and Brilliant Classics recordings in recent times, especially with older music, is that the recordings are often performed by musicologists who are also performing musicians. The musicologists often have 'discovered' the music which is being performed on the album. In some cases, they found the work in library collections which nobody ever looked at or whatever the case might be. The point is that the musicologists are often very familiar with the composer and the context in which the composer made their music so it is interesting to hear these performances versus situations in the past where maybe a famous musician would perform works for recordings even if they had very little knowledge of the composer or the context of the period/composition.
An example of this would be the recordings of Quantz flute concertos by Quantz expert and outstanding period flutist Mary Oleskiewicz. Klassik finds Oleskiewicz to also be quite attractive, especially while holding a flute, and Naxos wisely included a photograph of her with her Quantz recording. xD
I don't know about the Quantz recording specifically, but one general advantage the likes of Naxos and Brilliant Classics has by taking this musicological approach is that these recordings of somewhat obscure music are often sponsored by local cultural organizations in places like Germany and Italy who hope to promote not-so-well known composers who came from those areas or were active in those areas. The end result is that the sponsor may pay for all or some of the expenses involved in making the recording and the musicians doing the work may not end up making all that much, if anything, from the recordings. Thus, I'm sure those recordings are quite profitable for the labels like Naxos and Brilliant Classics.
It's certainly a very different situation than 50 years ago when the labels would pay the performers very well for making recordings, but the consequence of that is that the label had to sell a lot of records to recoup the costs associated with making them so they were very conservative and often ended up recording the same warhorses over and over again just as modern orchestras perform the same warhorses over and over again. :S
As for Telarc, their recordings often had excellent fidelity (though not always, I have one Rodrigo recording by them which they tried to make having 'surround sound', but that didn't work out so well) even if they were from the very early days of digital recordings. Telarc recordings usually listed the equipment used to record and edit the recordings in the liner notes. The letdown with Telarc recordings, however, were that the performances were quite often rather mediocre. :/ That's not always the case and there are a few winners on the Telarc label. But, yeah, if nothing else, they did prove that it was possible to make great digital recordings in those early days even if it took other labels 10, 15, or even 20 years to figure things out.
The sound quality on LaserLight recordings are usually somewhere between so-so and quite poor. The performance quality often lives on that range as well, but there are some winners on the LaserLight label. I might be a bit biased because Hans Graf was the conductor of the Houston Symphony for some number of years a while back, but the Mozart recordings he did for LaserLight with the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg are pretty good. Back in the day, LaserLight and Capriccio were sister labels under the German company Delta Media. I think Delta Media went out of business a while back, but Capriccio lives on and is a respected label these days. Capriccio still releases some music that was originally showed up on LaserLight CDs. I think Capriccio's recordings of D. Scarlatti's sonatas performed on harpsichord by Ton Koopman, which are highly respected recordings, originally showed up on cheap LaserLight CDs about 30 years ago. Respected pianist Jenő Jandó did a number of recordings for LaserLight and also during the early days of Naxos when they were considered a real bargain label.
So, yeah, while there aren't many reasons to mess around with those ultra cheap supermarket LaserLight and Pilz recordings here in modern times, I wouldn't completely dismiss the recordings on them. That said, I wouldn't expect anyone to pay more than a few cents for LaserLight or Pilz CDs on the resale market. xD It should also be noted that while those LaserLight and Pilz CDs were super cheap back 30 years ago, my father's old LaserLight and Pilz CDs are holding up just fine. They weren't cheaply pressed or anything like that. In fact, some of the LaserLight CDs were pressed by JVC.
