Most Challenging CD

Without a doubt "Michael Bolton Sings Celine Dion's Greatest Hits".

Now that's challenging.

Hey Bill - isn't that the one Yanni plays on but isn't listed in the credits?

Hmmm, interesting contrast Elizabeth brings up. Made me bring up Sinead on the system and enjoy some of her stuff I haven't listened to in a while. I get it. But I don't discount the qualities that I think Muralman is talking about. I don't think it's so much pure brute force, or a gut massage, though those things might occur to one in listening to passages like that. But I think he's talking about the ability of a system to clearly separate and define fairly complex and diverse audio events occurring simultaneously, all of which does indeed require some power, but not just power. It may deliver a crescendo without clipping, but if you loose the sense of the orchestra, and the crescendo becomes a huge wall of sound with no depth, texture or tonal complexity, then some potential of the recording is lost. In my experience that has been more challenging for various systems over the years than the aspects of subtlety and nuance that are also very important, that I'm taking from Elizabeth's post (and are actually more important to me as well since music I listen to most seems to highlight more simple and stark arrangements). In other words there have been systems in my experience that can attain what Elizabeth outlines that have failed miserably at the challenge Muralman proposes, but I have not experienced the opposite myself (not to say it's not possible, but usually if a system can do what I'm gleaning from Muralman's post it can achieve what Elizabeth proposes). I'll give you a cut that has both, albeit certainly not as stupendously dramatic as Muralman's example. Very challenging to a system nonetheless, and also challenging in the opening half which emphasizes beautiful, stark vocals that I think are exemplary of what Elizabeth describes: Mine would be Antony and the Johnson's - Hope There's Someone. The first half is just simple, stark beautiful vocals by Hegarty, accompanied by his piano. There is a startling sense of presence and immediacy. Somewhere around the middle it builds to him almost pounding away at the bass notes while his voice wails out in layers of broken harmony. If a system can separate out those layers and not turn it into a muddled two dimensional mess, it passes my test.

Dafos is a wonderful recording, but I don't really find it's particularly "challenging". It is very well recorded. I was listening while cooking this evening on my Squeezebox Boom and it sounded great even on that relatively mediocre component. It has great dynamic range, is stark, organic and beautiful...but all those things are fairly easy to do justice to on a well-assembled and set-up system. It's actually a great recording to show off a system with. If you don't mind that the disk is not gold, you can get a copy for around $22 also on Amazon.

Portishead "P." Levels too high, overdrives everything.

AFAIK, Portishead has not put out an album called "P" (I believe they've only released four full-length albums so far). There are no singles titled "P" either. Did you mean their latest album, "Third"?

Dafos IMHO has its most lasting quality in the cut with the crashing bass drum. When your system replicates the sound in one of the cuts on side two, I forget which, clearly for what it is, not just a big unmusical sound, you're well on your way to having, at a minimum, a system with excellent bass response.

I really don't listen to this recording that much, even though it is a superb recording the content is not exactly something I want to hear on a regular basis. Your comment got me listening to it on my main system again and I'm hearing it a different way - there are a few cuts that get pretty busy and dramatic and do test the system in a way that is more than just bass. Still, it's easy to be very impressed by this album on even a simple system. I think it has to do with the stark isolation of the sounds in many of the cuts, even those dramatic percussion cuts you reference. If the OP just wants albums to test bass abilities there are quite a few others as well, but that's only one measure of a system's abilities. Plenty of threads on that too. I guess in relation to the OP's impressions of the 1812 and Nutcracker the suggestion is a very good one as the impact of percussion cuts on Dafos have a very similar effect. Still, I think there's far more to a good system than being knocked back in your seat by convincing bass reproduction (though I must admit, I do enjoy that quality as well).

Yes Marco, that's correct.

Both Yanni and Kenny G are uncredited.

I'm waiting on the Mobile Fidelity Gold remaster mono box set version with the bonus CD, that has a previously unreleased cut where John Tesh pays a surprise visit to the studio and accompanies that power trio on a rousing cover of Michael Franks', Popsicle Toes! There's a rumor about vinyl and an eventual 192/24 download, but you didn't hear it from me.