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.
I make my own recordings and play them back. I record metal, water, wood, ceramic, voice, animals, guitar. These are the elements which all musical instruments are based on. Using produced music to tune a system is a recipe for disaster. It’s like trying to drive a car while looking through a kaleidoscope.
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Curious (and amusing!) take, @clustrocasual . However, the OP question was re: songs for auditioning gear, not tuning it (I’m also assuming we mean hifi kit and not pro-audio live kit). I think I get where you’re coming from, but if gear can’t get produced music to sound right to your liking, then the gear better be used specifically for playback of your elements + guitar recordings, no? If it’s any kit upstream of speakers being auditioned, and said kit’s not being auditioned through your speakers in a very similar room, I tend to think high accuracy impressions will be unlikely, due to lacking end-chain replication of moving + reflecting parts. Still chuckling over the kaleidoscope analogy 😀 And enjoying the posts that give reason(s) for their track selections. These threads always seem to me a great way to learn music by happy accident. |
Sting - Russians from the Blue Turtles album. Steve Winwood - Low Spark from Greatest Hits Live Patty Griffin - Mama’s Worried from the self titled album for acoustic guitar and of course her voice. Led Zeppelin - No Quarter from early Houses of the Holy Robert Ludwig Lacquer. Dire Straits - Six Blade Knife from the self titled album. Bruce - New York City Serenade from the Wild, The Innocent album.
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Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" for the cymbal attacks and decays, and the hi-hat 8th note work. Osamu Kitajima "Golden Mean" off the Masterless Samurai album for soundstage and high-frequencies (bells). "Aja" for the incredible balancing act between the electric piano and Steve Gadd’s drum kit. Andreas Vollenweider’s "Caverna Magica" album for the sonic landscapes Dire Straits "In the Gallery" -- if your system is set up well, you’ll know it. Eva Cassidy’s cover of "Songbird", for the voice, for the guitar, and the excellent production values. |
"Chrome" by Joe Jackson - specifically to test whether a system preserves timing information. Shelby Lynne's Just A Little Lovin' for ambience recovery. Regarding Steely Dan, I don't find Gaucho to be particularly useful as a test disc. The parts on that album were overdubbed and re-recorded so many times - on analogue tape - that it's lacking a lot of harmonic information. I do love the album musically, however. |
