Sure, those are easy ones. Try some stuff off of Stanley Clarke's "At the Movies" or if you really want some LF try Bass Addiction's "For Whom the Bass Tolls"
Do some remixes by Seal. Just a beautiful, beautiful variety of bass/LF effects he uses.
Go old school to Sting's "A Thousand Years" and see if you system can even reproduce the opening extreme LF before the instruments start in. I guess that most audiophiles don't even realize the unbelievably low frequency information that resides in that opening. Most systems cannot even reproduce it.
Marcus Miller is really fun to hear on a good system.
It's really dreck, imo, but there is some fun lower bass in Lorde's "Royals" and tracks off of Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories"
Some nice upright bass with Gregory Porter's work such as Liquid Spirit.
Kyle Eastwood has some good work; I like some selections from the Paris Blue album.
Philipppe Saisse has a surprising amount of electronic LF in his music. One of my favorite albums by the Rippingtons in years is Fountain of Youth, which has quite a strong electronic substrate.
etc. etc. Several of these suggestions can be handled well enough by nearly any system, and some will not be reproduced well unless you have an extreme rig.
Imo, less than 10% of audio systems can handle all of these with aplomb, with no constriction in frequency or dynamics.
Saint-Saenz organ symphony. Towards the end when the organ kicks in. I would say a good system should rattle your guts with that one but the bass should still sound like an organ note and not just a wave.
Also, for precise, well recorded and produced bass listen to Steely Dan's Two Against Nature album. The song by the same name is probably the best test.
There are several songs on Sting's Soul Cages with extreme but well produced bass as well.
Empty Pages by Traffic has a heavy, jazzy bass line augmented by kick drum. However, there is some intentional distortion in those notes so it might not sound as tight as you might like but that's not the system, its the recording.
I would assume many of the above selections are to impress, but one recording I have heard if you are looking for very accurate bass (musical), and trying to tune the bass in your listening room would be Ray Brown's "Soular Energy." His standup bass should sound quick and tight with even loudness from top to bottom. Purely acoustic.
The Saint-Saenz symphony I'm referring to, at least my recording, was produced under extremely tight circumstance where the organ and church were selected to approximate the original debut of the symphony and they even stopped traffic for several blocks around the church to keep road noise out.
Steely Dan are well known for their obsessive production/engineering and on some tracks/album used drum machines because they felt even some high level jazz drummers just weren't precise enough. I have found Two Against Nature to be one of their best produced albums.
Sting is a bass player. For whatever that is worth. His albums tend to be well produced.
HSU has files you can download to test your bass. It includes white noise at different frequencies and some orchestral recordings that can make it feel like your house is trying to tear itself apart with the right subwoofers - http://files.hsuresearch.com/downloads/
Some music I like to listen to with good bass includes Boz Scaggs - Speak Low, Far East Movement - Like a G6, Donald Fagen - What I Do, and Deadmau5 - Some Chords. Those are just a few off the top of my head.
@n80 Which recording of the organ symphony are you referring to?
When you test bass don’t miss to try songs where the bass has to fight with the kick-drum and other instruments to be heard. The bass resolution is just as important as the capability to play bass alone. Eagles "I can’t tell you why" would be one example. Greg Brown and Glen Hansard others. Nice recommendations above. Sting is good to try while his bass playing after the Police I think is mostly very subtile and hard to reproduce as it should be heard. A probably not so internationally well-known recording with reference sound over-all is Katzen Kapell "Katzen Kapell". A real struggle......will I ever get that one right?.
gosta, I'll look up the Saint-Saenz symphony when I get home but I think it is the Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra on Telarc or London.
Agree about bass resolution. That is probably one of the main things I like in a system. The 'thump' is nice but distinguishing kick drum from bass guitar in a complex arrangement is what I really look for. That's where Steely Dan-Two Against Nature shines.
As @Jafant mentions Jamie Cullum is a young talented man that really gets the SQ right. "Photograph" on his cd Cathing Tales is another track (of many) where the fine bass (electric in this case) has to fight a little to be heard (after the intro). Please, do not miss "When I get famous" on the cd "Momentum". What a groove. Makes you feel good all day.
Unfortunately Telarc is not yet on Tidal. Going through all other recordings of the organ and the pictures. Like these old Living Stereo recordings. A problem with classical symphonic recordings to me is that most of them tend to have 40% of the orchestra in the left respectively the right speaker and only 20% in the middle. Seems unnatural. Makes you sit too close. They are also rather different in tempo and "effects". And SQ. Will report back.
@n80 Pictures at an Exhibition was originally composed for piano. It was subsequently orchestrated for full orchestra. The link is to an organ adaptation--I presume based mainly on the piano original. There are notes there that will make your bellbottoms flap in the breeze.
@twoleftears My wife sits and reads in a small room just off my 'music room' when she likes what I'm listening too. She doesn't usually like the volume in the 'music room'.
One day I was listening to the Saint Saenz and the organ finale rolled around and I heard her say from where she was sitting that it sounded like it was going to tear the house down. And I don't even listen all that loud.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
