Songs you use when auditioning gear

clustrocasual

81 posts

02-19-2024 at 02:00am 

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.
 

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.

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.

Using familiar recordings is the key. You might be taken with the latest Taylor Swift Ode To A Tight End, but if you haven’t heard the piece on a variety of systems it may not be the best piece to asses new equipment.

I listen to Classical and I have 3 pieces that I use:

The first is a recording of Sibelius Fourth Symphony , released originally on EMI (now Warner), with the Berlin PO and Herbert von Karajan. I use the slow movement (writen when the composer was being treated for throat cancer), which has deep string choirs, an oboes that goes fromm very soft to very load in the space of 16 bars and back again, and ominous, menacing brass. I have had more than one stereo salesman inquire "What is that music?" in admiration.

The other is a recording of Didos Lament ("When I am Laid In The Earth") featuring Emma Kirkby. It starts off very quiet, and Kirkby doesn’t have the biggest voice compared to others that have recorded it (Jessye Norman, etc) but the volume and intensity ramp up and Kirkby has laser like intonation; I have found that systems that get this right will do well by vocal recordings

   The third piece I use is actaully a poor recording, because it is important to hear how a system treats poor recordings.  The Pianist Wilhelm Kempff recorded Beethoven Piano Sonatas several times, but the one I use is from the sterreo set made on DG in the sixties.  The treble on the digital transfer is awful-make your ears bleed on a system that accentuates brightness.  So while it is far from a favored recording, it is useful for auditioning equipment