Good Bass Recordings on CD for Subwoofer Testing

Second "Morph the Cat" (astounding for demo of entire bass range...not just extension, but explosive dynamics).

2 others that also have a ton of bass:

-- Little Roy, "Battle in Seattle," extremely well recorded & produced reggae covers of Kurt Cobain tunes. Easily my favorite versions of these tunes, and very implactful throughout the bass range.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJD7JqtO-bo

-- Fats Waller tunes played on a very good theater organ (not a vintage recording): "Fats at the Organ." Some of the lowest notes will shake your house & possessions. But best of all, the music is swinging and wonderful, in the best Fats Waller manner.

https://www.amazon.com/Fats-at-Organ-Waller/dp/B000001HF3

I have both recordings. If you can't find them, I could help.

Bela Fleck-Sinister Minister
Jackson Browne-Sergio Leone
Steve Hunter-222 w 23rd

Holly Cole: Temptation

The audio store where I bought my Mirage M5si's used this CD to demonstrate the speakers. It made it easy to hear the differences among various amps, especially for bass extension and control, but also natural midrange and transparency. Candidates included a high powered Sunfire (it was 20 years ago) and a pair of those massive, metered, McIntosh monoblocks. On its own, the Sunfire sounded pretty good, but those Macs made the Sunfire sound like a toy.

I just remembered a good tool that helped me integrate a pair of small subs with my Maggie 1.7s.

I have a pair of small subwoofers to add some depth and slam to the Maggie 1.7s. The self-canceling nature of the 1.7s minimizes the upper bass hump that’s so pervasive in room matching, and why many audiophiles have bass traps.

Another advantage, however, is that it also makes it *easier* to match subs with Maggies. I have a pair of Mirage MM8s. These now-discontinued mini-subs were little gems--long-throw 8" drivers with twin passive radiators for each sub. The active driver occupied the entire sub enclosure except for the plate amp, which packed 1400 watts peak (340 rms) power. Controls were granular--continuous knobs for crossover (50-200 Hz), phase (0-180deg.) and volume.

To dial in the phase, I put on "With a Little Help from My Friends" from the recent Beatles Mono reissue. I know the bass line from this song note for note and it dances frequently across that 50Hz crossover line. I played it one channel at a time and twisted the phase knob until it sounded right. Then I did the same thing with the other channel. At that point I had excellent-to-perfect (sounds perfect to me) integration between Maggie panels and subwoofers.

You might say I dialed in perfect subwoofer integration with "A Little Help from My Friends."

BTW, it's time to drop the dogma that you can't integrate dynamic subs with Maggie panels. True, subs used to be universally slow and lacked the controls to get a good integration, and some still are. But there are many subs today with insanely powerful amps, well-anchored high excursion drivers with nearly weightless diaphgragms driven my megawatts of power, with the controls you need for integration--crossover points, phase (continuous, not a couple of toggle positions), With aluminum diaphragms, 1400w peak, patented high excursion ribbed surrounds, and continuous 0-360 deg. phase control, transient response is not a problem for me subs, even when matched with Maggies. I'm intrigued by the Syzygy 12" sub that has a smart phone app that does a complete 3D profile of the listening room (including ceiling height and furniture positions) and creates a digital filter to match. 

"Reference Recordings, the Berlioz "Symphonie Fantastique."

+1 @almarg ~ Fabulous recording, thank you!