Music to evaluate Speakers and System

I disagree that one should use whatever one likes. A system should play everything well unless one is happy to predispose what one can play and enjoy to one genre or another.

A nasty test is the Sheffield Drum Track - Track 1. Try this at realistically high SPL levels and see if it holds together properly without sounding compressed, dull, warmly resonant or boomy. If this difficult percussion test fails then there is no need to waste time auditioning other much easier music. Suprisingly Piano (another percussion instrument) is also tough for most systems - so I would cue that up next after drums. Next I would try brass instruments...as most "Hi-fi" is often too polite to do brass instruments proper justice...they should be able to sound loud and brash (edgy) and placed forward in the soundstage - sometimes but not always mellow and subdued.

Be wary of spending time on female vocals, saxophone or clarinet, as these are generally pretty easy for any system. Male vocals are significantly harder and as someone mentioned...keeping it all together at realistic levels on a big jazz band or Wagner can tell you an awful lot too.

Really one should methodically go through each instrument one by one to check timbre...some systems hold together at high levels but sound too much like "hi-fi" and just aren't natural sounding on the detail...and one needs both for long term satisfaction. Some systems do everything well and then fall down over a specific frequency or instrument - this can be a long term irritation that can drive you crazy. And some systems only do one thing exceptionally well...this to me is the worst scenario if you like music, as this kind of system, no matter how impressive or magical, is only good to demo one or two tracks!

You have to go with what you know best. I 'know' piano so I tend to listen to recordings of a Bosendorfer with which I'm very familar and I own because I love them enuf to have listened to them extensively without regards to their value to system evaluation. And I know what it sounds like live from a relatively close prospective.

Now, if you have no absolute reference in your memory bank, a good 'test' recording(s) is made by Opus 3 and includes cuts from many of their recordings. I have 'Depth of Image' on LP but the digital version comes in a set I believe.

The benefit of these disc's is they are minimalist recordings of various types of jazz and classical music, vocal, instrumental, groups, even organ and choir. Each cut comes with a description of what you should hear when it plays. In a properly put together and set up the music is both natural and the soundstaging can be fantastic. If you play these discs and you can't hear what is extrodinary about the recording then you've go a lot of work to do on your system and/or your listening skills.

If you interest in 'test recording' is less about timbre and tonality, but more about set up, check out the Sheffield/XLO Test and Burn-in CD. I've found the cut with out of phase information and the 'walk about'cut very helpful in fine tuning set up (identifing problem areas and correcting them).

FWIW.

General:

I agree with others. Use something you've listened to a hundred times or more.

Specific:

Timbre,an a capella choir. The Robert Shaw Chorale comes to mind. Human voices are the most complex things to reproduce.Second choice,a string quartet.

Imaging,the last movement of Mozart Symphony #41. Can you follow all four horizontal/contapuntal lines, playing at the same time,without the speakers getting in the way?

Dynamic Range,Use a piece of music for which you have a written score. Look at the dynamic markings. ff is 100db,f is 90db, mf is 80 db,mp is 70db,p is 60db, pp is 50 db.

Find a ff passage and set the volume so your SPL meter is 100;keep the volume setting there and play a pp passage It should be 50,if it is more,you know how compressed the dynamic range is. Then do the same in reverse,set a pp at fifty,play a ff and see how close to 100 it is.

Range extreme,treble. Anything with a half stopped violin.

Range extreme,bass. Anything from the JS Bach Organbuken.

I know that is over the top,but there it is.

Female Jazz is fine but that music sounds good on almost any speaker, I swear some must love the format simply because it makes them feel good about the gear they own.
You only need to bring what you like and are familiar with to decide what you like.

I disagree that one should use whatever one likes.

That is not what I or anyone else said. We emphasized that the recordings need to be familiar but no one said that they should be restricted to a single type or genre.

A system should play everything well unless one is happy to predispose what one can play and enjoy to one genre or another.

Agreed.

Kal