I don’t like to play for immediate impact. That is cheap and tawdry and right off the bat encourages people in all the basest aspects of listening. Of course this is what everyone does in demo’s. Then they wonder why there are no women audiophiles, why so many constantly churn components (looking for the next immediate impact), why so few audiophiles have any real listening skills.
What I like to do instead is play something very simple and quiet like......
Quoted because I couldn’t possibly agree more.
When I have guests with no previous experience with or interest in HiFi, I put on whatever music I think they might like. Generally they’ll never have heard a halfway decent system in their life, so pretty much anything will make an impact.
If I want to show off what the system can actually do and have guest who’ll know what they’re hearing, I put on "In darknesse let mee dwell " from " A Candle in the Dark " by the Newberry Consort, "Church Windows" by Respighi, "The Great Gate of Kiev" by Mussorgsky, a couple of songs from "Early Hours" by Eleanor McEvoy, something from Lisa Gerrard’s solo album or maybe Holly Cole’s album "Temptation". Depends what music they’re into.