Album cd or LP with best bass for new subwoofer

If you're not "squeamish", a disc by a band called "Master" entitled "Faith is in Season". This is hard metal with "shocking" pictures and lyrics. Other than completely rocking you to the bone, the kick drums will have your woofers flailing about at a rapid pace the entire length of the disc. As a side note, this is very fast and tight bass that allows you to check transient response of the woofers themselves along with verifying the amount of control that your amplifier has over them. This is NOTHING like the slow, bloated, ill-defined mud that many other "bass heavy" recordings demonstrate. Due to the high average power levels, this WILL get your woofers and amplifier "warmed up" rather rapidly when playing at volume.

Another good disc for reference purposes is the Burmester CD Volume III. Not only does this have a pipe organ track, there is another track of very potent highly percussive large diameter drums. As such, the surge power required on demand at such a low frequency can be VERY high, causing both amplifier clipping and potential woofer damage due to the resultant "instantaneous thrust" that results.

Either of these discs can hurt your system. Proceed with caution and start off with the volume at a reasonable level. Sean
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Any GOOD recording of a large pipe organ will definitely wring out your new subwoofer. The pipe organ produces the lowest recorded frequencies on CD or LP (down to 16 Hz), and good recordings of the pipe organ will provide a prodigious test of a subwoofer (both its low-frequency response, and its ability to play at realistic volume levels).

There are many good pipe organ recordings, but three that I particularly enjoy feature a group of the largest pipe organs in the United States:
1. "Magic" (Dorian xCD-90308), featuring the Wanamaker Grand Court organ in the Lord & Taylor department store in Philadelphia. This huge organ has more than 28,000 pipes, and was designed to reproduce the sounds of a full symphony orchestra.
2. "Ocean Grove: French Spectaculars" (Dorian xCD-90267), featuring the Ocean Grove (New Jersey) Auditorium organ, which has over 9,000 pipes in 152 ranks.
(Note: both of these Dorian recordings used a 24-bit digital recording process.)
3. "Tongues of Fire" (Pro Organo CD 7063), which features the 20,000+ pipe organ in the Cadet Chapel at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point.

For fans of pipe organs who might find themselves reading this post, there is an organization called the Organ Historical Society that has a huge catalog of pipe organ recordings from around the world. Check out their web site at: http://www.organsociety.org/

I agree with Sdcampbell about well-recorded organ music. I'll add two more suggestions:

James Carter "Chasin' the Gypsy." On this album, Carter plays bass saxophone as a lead instrument on a number of tracks. On the first track (Nuages), in particular, he really plumbs the depths of what the bass saxophone is capable of. This is a great test of the bass response of speakers/subs.

Rusted Root "When I Woke," especially the first track (Drum Trip)

ARIA CD on Astor Place Recording label 1997. I don't turn volume up when play this one. Definitely the task for sub with under 20Hz divings.

Bela Fleck, or Vic Wooten(fleck's bassist).

TRUST ME. Best bass ever.