Songs you use when auditioning gear


What are some of your favorite songs to play when auditioning gear?  I often listen to Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.  Just about anything off of Gaucho or Aja by Steely Dan or Joni Mitchell’s Hejira or Hissing of Summer Lawns usually gets spun up too.  Dreams, in particular, is such a great song and is recorded with the balance I really like as well as a full and wide soundstage.  Wondering what some of yours are to see what I’m missing.

128x128jastralfu

The Cars Albums

Supertramps Crime of the Century

Alan Parson Eye in the Sky 

 

@jastralfu Glad you liked that selection.  You mentioned you're looking for well recorded jazz.  I'll recommend again Side 1 of Miles Davis - In A Silent Way.  It is a stunning recording.  Cheers.

I have, from my youth, a few Sheffield Labs direct to disc LPs. There are a couple of Harry James big band LPs that are wonderful. 

45 years ago when our small group 'got into audio', we soon started to use classical music. NOT because we liked the music (NOT), but because all the modern music was CRAP, recoreded/mixed/molested to death with their umptieth track and gazillion mics, and uterly useless to 'test' equipment. The sound engineers for classical music on the other hand had already decades of experience how to record and preserve music the right way. 

Today, I put Steely Dan, Friday Night in San Francisco, Frank Zappa, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd (45 years of using it, the one constant), Yello, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (lets see what is shaking), Driver's Seat (not sure why, just snappy) in the CD player.