What Are Your Reference Discs? or Specific Reference Tracks


Looking for new gems!  My reference discs are: Graceland, Paul Simon  Avalon, Roxy Music  Brothers in Arms, Dire Straits  So, Peter Gabriel  Ten Summoner's Tales, Sting 

What are yours?

wweiss

Showing 1 response by lemonhaze

There is a difference between a Demo and a Reference track.

One of my reference tracks is a nostalgic favourite of mine but sounds lousy on most systems, even very expensive ones. 10CC's I'm not in love. Great performance but just seems to have a high noise floor with poor dynamics. When I hear it rendered in a way that makes it at least passable soundwise then I know the system is working.

Another reference is the album from Christina Pluhar, Los Imposibles. One of the best recordings I own. It's a beautiful recording capturing the size of the acoustic space and revealing great purity of tone.

I do not bother with the above for demo, my weird friends have different tastes. When I ask someone what they would like to hear they mostly say ' just play anything' so I put on Patricia Barber and play a couple of tracks, certainly not the whole album, she wears thin very quickly.

Reference and Demo, is it possible? YesChuck Mangione: Children of Sanchez (explosive dynamics, outstanding performance) Play loud
Mighty Sam McClain: Give it up to love, track 2, too proud ( won many awards such as blues album of the month) Play louder
Osamu Kitajima: I don't think this album has a name but the track of interest is called 'yesterday and karma'  When I first heard it I thought I was hearing a synthesizer but it turned out to be Minnie Ripperton's incredible voice, WOW! When the tune was written Osamu could not find a Japanese girl who could hit these notes so Ms Ripperton was called upon. This is serious goosebumps territory and if you do not react/respond to this then perhaps your system is wanting. All his stuff is interesting