I judge it by how well it plays everything. No one recording covers all the bases.
What is your goto reference recording
What record CD or down load is the music that you use to judge your system by or shop with ?
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Whenever I put something new in my system after things have settled down and I want to really start listening I always put on
Mahler: Symphony No. 2
Valery Gergiev & London Symphony Orchestra
because it has everything in it , massive dynamics, a solo vocal with hardly any accompaniment, great percussion and most of all wonderful playing. Quite the best recording I have of the fifteen versions in my library. |
I’ll echo the assortment or compilation theme. I enjoy many genres. Consequently I should have a bit of each one that has distinct items I’m looking for a ??? to exhibit or demonstrate. Bottom end performance; midrange; top end finesse; sound staging; area of the sound stage; amongst these tracks I should get some pretty good idea of what to expect. I use Jazz, blues, R&B, folk, country, alternative rock, rock, acid jazz, choral, acoustic and metal. I have a couple tracks of Acapulco singers, male and female. Baritone Sax. Drums of course. As said, I can’t see how someone could select ??? using but one sample of any music, unless that was the only music genre they listen to. Put them onto disc and HDD, or bring along a couple LPs. |
I also use a CD I burned with many familiar but different pieces of music. I think that Paul Desmond's alto sax on Take Five is a very good indicator of whether a speaker will exhibit objectionable harshness later on, BTW. Other pieces include male vocals, female vocals, solo piano, and some other esoteric stuff I like like Lambchop. Having stuff on 1 CD saves the distraction of getting up and changing CDs or LPs. |
One of my go-to records for set up and dialing in is a standard issue early pressing of Janis Ian’s Between the Lines- has lot’s of the stuff you’d likely use to check sound- female voice, strings (real), some orchestral parts, some acoustic, some deep bass and a lot of variety among the tracks. I have a test approval pressing that I acquired and it doesn’t sound any different than the standard issue Columbias from the original era of release. RL mastered it originally. It's a good sounding 'standard' record, nothing "audiophile" about it, so it's a better reference than something that is spectacular for the purposes of set up. |
An assortment of superior quality XRCDs or quality mastered redbook CDs, depending on the genre preference of the guest listener. These include any and all of the following: XRCD - Female vocalists in "Best Audiophile Voices" in the various discs in that XRCD whole series; - Grand piano in XRCD with "Steinway the Beautiful"; - Classical masters in XRCD with "The Best of the Audiophile Classics" ( Bach, Brahms, Schubert, Chopin, and Beethoven; - Rock in DIRE STRAITS in XRCD with "Brothers in Arms". In standard redbook CDs , for rock / guitar instrumentals / jazz : all of the following three : +1 for DIRE STRAITS "Love Over Gold"; Guitar instrumental: CHESTER & LESTER ..... Chet Atkins and Les Paul on their chosen electric guitars together as a duo, backed by the cream of Music City’s studio musicians circa 1975 in Nashville - a great 14 track offering . Jazz in BILL EVANS "Riverside Profiles"... remastered in 2006. |
I have a few songs: Stevie Ray Vaugh - Tin Pan Alley Ginger Baker - Cyril Davies Gary Clarke Jr.- Down to Ride Cassandra Wilson - Strange Fruit Miles Davis - All Blues Al Di Meola - The Embrace George Duke - The Black Messiah Pt 2 Les McCann - Forever Gone Jimmy Smith - Got my Mojo Working Christian McBride - Getting to It/ Little Sunflower Charlie Hunter - Rendezvous Avec La Verite Dave Brubeck - Time Out Dizzy Gillespie - Night in Tunisia Rickie Lee Jones - Dat Dere Marcus Miller - Slippin into Darkness Nina Simone - Four Women Hugh Masekela - Stimela Rachelle Ferrell - I Can Explain & My Funny Valentine Sonny Rollins - Sais Ahmad Jamal - Night Has A Thousand Eyes I play these tunes whenever I audition speakers or components. My local dealer loves me. I also use this material when I'm doing any tweaks at home. Cheers |
I agree a system has to play everything, but you need a couple of high quality recordings you know well, to take to a demo. Mine are: Lyle Lovett, Joshua Judges Ruth Dvorak, Rusalka, , The Decca version, with Renee Flemming, the first few tracks. If you think you don't like opera, just try that recording, it's just wonderful. As an aside, the last time I saw Russalka, was at the Glyndeborne, in the UK. festival and the Soprano, in her excitement, flew 15ft off the stage into the orchestra. She was fine, the £30000 cello she landed on was terminal though. There was the inevitable call for a Doctor. Absolutely no point I thought, there'll be hundreds of them. Sure enough, I was persuaded to volunteer and was told they had 24 Doctors already! |