Your Top Audiophile Demo Tracks


List five of your top audiophile tracks that you would show off your speakers .Think of it this way.  You go int a shop to demo new speakers.  Within that hour or two what tracks do you use. I have a pair of Golden Ear Triton Two's paired with a SVS SB-3000 sub.

 Yeah, I like Satisfaction from the Stones but I'm talking about pristine recordings that are so good would probably sound good on my old eight track deck. Shows how old I am! I have so many but here are five instrumental tracks that highlight all the frequencies from the lowest notes GE active subwoofers reproduce to those wonderful highs of the folded ribbon tweeter. I am a semi professional drummer so I like to play these types of tracks at near live levels. Probably 90 - 95 dB. I know not good for the ears but my listening sessions at that level are kept short. Plus GE speakers can handle the headroom without distortion.
Not in any particular order:

1. The Golden Dolphin - Marco Minnemann Incredible drum sonics
2. Justice's Groove - Stanley Clarke Beautiful bass tone
3. Alone in the City - Chris Botti That trumpet, so clear from the HVFR tweeter
4. Personal Power - Wolfgang Schmid - Everything here, tight bass, well recorded drums, and that sax!
5. American Tango - Weather Report - Wait for the keyboards to come in
So much music-so little time!
wweiss
I don't do "audiophile"
If the stuff I like gets the toes tapping it's all good.
These SOUND LIAISON album downloads have gotten incredible reviews and they do live up to the hype. Especially the One Mic recordings are a must have if you have a decent system.


1. Carmen Gomes Inc. Up Jumped The Devil, 
.
...."This is some of the best sounding drum sound I have ever heard on a recording. Very dynamic and not reserved. The sound of the double bass is full, rich and powerful where needed but with no hint of bloat. And the guitar.....It is clear and reverberant. Naturally, not with added reverb. Of course, the vocals are captured beautifully. Carmen is right there in front of you. This recording doesn’t take you to the recording studio. Even better, it brings the recording studio to your listening room. Very few studio recordings do this. The drums to the left, Carmen in the middle in front of the instruments and the bass just to the right of her and the guitar to the right side of the soundstage. The sound is totally three dimensional. You almost feel like you can reach out and touch everyone. The sound is totally open with natural decay and depth. It is stunning. It really is. No hyperbole."....

 
2. Reinier Voet & Pigalle44; Ballade pour la nuit
.....These guys and this recording just rocks. Pace, rhythm, tone and soundstage are just off the charts.
The precise placement of all four of the musicians perfectly matches the photos of the sessions.
The balance of all four instruments is darn near perfect. As you can no doubt tell, I am a huge fan of this recording.
It is one of the best in terms of recording quality I have ever heard. Of course, and as always,
your view of the actual music content may vary quite considerably from mine.
Nonetheless, I think we would all agree that this recording sounds sensational....

3. Sound Liaison’s DXD Music Sampler
There are some audio enthusiasts who claim that high-resolution digital recordings offer no audible improvement over conventional Red Book CDs. I could not disagree more, but what about 96 kHz vs. DXD at 352.8 kHz? I found the 96 kHz files to be excellent, but by comparison the 352.8 kHz originals have a bit more air and space in the sound, even with my OPPO player down-sampling them to 176.4 kHz. The DSD comparisons are interesting. I found the DSD files to be a bit “warmer” but I could not help wondering if there’s some sort of euphonic coloration going in the conversion process. At times, I felt that the DSD files had a slightly larger and more precise stereo image. That may seem strange, but I can only report what I heard. It’s possible that my reactions to the warmth and the imaging are due to the simpler analog filtering in DSD playback.Sound Liason’s DXD sampler, The Visual Sound, offers some of the most realistic sounding recordings I’ve heard, in enjoyable selections performed by excellent musicians. Most of the music on this sampler is decidedly laid-back, and audiophiles looking for an in-your-face sonic spectacular will likely miss the point. For engineer Frans de Rond and the excellent musicians heard on these recordings, it’s all about subtlety and refinement. Musically perceptive listeners will appreciate the efforts of all involved in making these fine recordings.

Gary Galo - AudioXpress


4. Carmen Gomes: Don't You Cry

Many musicians can play jazz and blues, but few can sing the blues with total conviction and emotional authenticity. Dutch singer-songwriter Carmen Gomes is one of those few. A father from the Mediterranean region endowed Carmen Gomes not only with a Spanish-sounding name, but by her own description, with a Mediterranean temperament. At the margins of the culture, the world's differences meet; for Carmen Gomes, the language that gave her freedom of expression was not her native Dutch, but English; and the mode that encouraged her creativity was American jazz and blues. With a dozen previous albums in her catalogue, this accomplished singer, songwriter, teacher and vocal coach distills more than two decades of live performance and recording experience into "Don't You Cry", an hour of compelling jazz vocal music.

The selection and sequencing of the songs tells the story of a woman’s growing recognition that she must throw off the chains of love—false illusions, fears and insecurities—before she can find a more honest way of loving. From the opening "Unchain My Heart", a 1963 hit for Ray Charles, through two songs associated with the great Nina Simone, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and Simone's own assertion of female sensuality "Do I Move You", with stops along the way in the Deep South of the songwriter's imagination (Ira and George Gershwin's "Summertime") and the historical reality ("How Long", credited to Leroy Carr, originally written by blueswoman Ida Cox), the listener finally arrives at Gomes' original "As I Do." It's a one-hour trip from the depths of love's oppression to the renewed hope for a relationship between equal partners, cast in the languorous mode of sultry jazz singing and subtle instrumental accompaniment.

Gomes’ stylistic technique extends past the conventions of behind-the-beat phrasing. Listen to how she teases out the syllables, as if the lyrics themselves were musical notes, not just words on a page. On "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", she prolongs the vowel sounds through several shades of inflection. With her flawless pitch, the effect is entrancing. You might hear echoes of Billie Holliday, but her vocal sound has developed well beyond imitation to distinctive individuality.

The ensemble Carmen Gomes, Inc. is more than a singer and a backing group. Bassist Peter Bjørnild, whose session notes are posted on the Sound Liaison website, produced the record and arranged the songs in collaboration with Gomes, guitarist Folker Tettero and drummer Bert Kamsteeg. Tettero plays an archtop semi-hollow body guitar that has a warm timbre; his stylistic ears are well-tuned to blues idiom, especially the minor-key blues of the mid-1960s. Kamsteeg uses brushes throughout, and keeps superb time without ever overpowering the singer or other players. In bassist Peter Bjørnild, Gomes has found the deep instrumental 'voice' that complements her vocals, the glove that perfectly fits the hand. Their musical partnership is longstanding, and the trust that only years can bring is clearly in evidence.

The decision to record with a single-point stereo microphone came about after the group had already finished a recording session done with conventional multi-mic technique. The late delivery of a Josephson C700S stereo microphone prompted a test recording of a single tune; an afterwards, engineer and label co-owner Frans Rond was so convinced that the sound qualities of that track should be heard on a full recording, he reconvened two more sessions that consisted of the group's working repertoire, done almost entirely in single takes. Those sessions were recorded at MCO Studio 2, Hilversum, The Netherlands, on 26 October and 15 December 2018, in DXD 352.8 kHz. As Bjørnild explains: "With only one mic… mixing was no longer possible. We would have to make the complete sound stage right there by carefully moving each instrument closer or further away, as well as left and right, in relationship to the microphone."

With an engineer of the capabilities of Frans Rond, mixing is no longer needed. The careful placement of the musicians and the control of group balance makes "Don't You Cry" one of the best-sounding "live in the room" audiophile recordings I've heard.

Not surprisingly, site listeners awarded "Don't You Cry" NativeDSD Vocal Album of the Year for 2019. I eagerly await the next release from Carmen Gomes Inc.

Mark Werlin


5; Gidon Nunes Vas - EMBRACE ME

This is a typical Sound Liaison release, here captured live in studio 2 at Hilversum's MCO, with recording, mixing and mastering by Frans de Rond.However en route to becoming a DXD (or DSD) master via a Digital Audio Workstation, the initial recording was transferred to a Studer A80 tape machine at 15ips. Why? The answer is that ‘it gives us a bit of what they call 'Mojo'.
Definitely an audiophile recording, then, but with a sense of humour, and the result is spectacular, with a warm, generous ambience you can almost reach out and touch each instrument; Gidon Nunez Vaz' trumpet, Timothy Banchet's piano, Thomas Pol's bass and the drums of the splendidly named Yoran Vroom- lovingly captured. And Denise Jannah's vocals on four of the tracks are simply gorgeous. The end result is a gentle, measured and totally appealing set.

A.E Hifinews and record review



All Vinyl
Johnny Cash - Delia's Gone
Cowboy Junkies - Shining Moon
Robert Wyatt - Alifib
Gentle Giant - Knots
King Crimson - Larks Tongues In Aspic Part 1

Great responses!  I have a lot of listening to do.

My all time favorite female vocal test track:
Spanish Harlem-Rebeca Pidgeon
The Ultimate Demonstration Disc - Chesky Records
Try O-Zone Percussion  song Jazz Variants you'll think the matching band is in the room. We brought it to a Magnepan demo and people who had left the room came running back in to hear it.