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Best songs to test speakers


Ryklipsch

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  • 3 weeks later...

When testing amplifiers and loudspeakers for EnjoyTheMusic.com, I always play a crescendo of full orchestra music. No other type of music has full audible frequency response range, highest dynamic range, widest sound pressure levels and most instruments all playing at the same time! These characteristics are extremely hard for amplifier and speaker combinations to reproduce and MOST dont. They compress and distort the notes and sounds together like puree vegetable juice. Really wanna hear what your stereo cant do? Play all-out, high-energy full symphony orchestra.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 years later...

Peter Gabriel's "So" album.

Sledgehammer is a quick one that will show any shortcomings.

This is true. One of the best albums ever made, and it sounds exceptional. Mercy Street will also give your speakers a workout, especially in the lower frequency.

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My favorite is Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Records. The first 14.25 minutes. Starts off very slow, then builds, then slow and builds and then eventually explodes into a full orchestra a few times, back and forth, and your house starts to rumble. All mortal systems fail this test..

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For actual testing and demo:

 

1. Dire Straits - Money for Nothing.  King of all demo songs.  

 

2. Tool - 46 and 2.  Awesome bass guitar riff with a nice tone, cool dynamics.  This one has it all.  

 

3. Dave Matthews Band - "Say Goodbye", the intro has lots of cool drums.  

 

4. Nils Lofgren - Keith Don't Go, nice acoustic guitar

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My favorite is Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Records.

 

There was a direct-to-disc phonograph recording of Romeo & Juliet by Sheffield Lab done in the late 1970s by Doug Sax with Erich Leinsdorf and the LA Philharmonic that was my test disc. No mastering on that recording.  The dynamics were difficult to keep the needle in the groove and the loudspeakers from sounding "loud", i.e., in my non-Klipsch era using planars from the early 80s to the mid-2000s.

 

That recording is spectacular still, if you can ignore the ticks and pops that have built up over 3 1/2 decades of use--something that I've always found difficult to do. 

 

Chris

Edited by Chris A
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My go-to songs to display sheer power:

Metallica - Enter Sandman

Blue Stahli - Suit Up

Celldweller - Faction 6

To test many qualities:

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms(album)

Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven

Death - Voice of the Soul

Chris Cornell - I Am The Highway(live) - Songbook

Dead Can Dance - The Carnival Is Over

Santana - Europa

Muse - Endlessly / Panic Station

The Modern Jazz Quartet - Blues in C Minor

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I just unmasterd Blues on Bach including Blues in C Minor by The Modern Jazz Quartet.  The results are really nice to just sit back and listen to for non-auditioning purposes..

 

I've collected many of the MJQ's studio albums on digital format.  Their music is a significant part of my music gestalt.  They make pretty convincing listening on the Jubs after unmastering. 

 

Chris

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  • 2 months later...
On 3/24/2016 at 11:52 AM, Chris A said:

There was a direct-to-disc phonograph recording of Romeo & Juliet by Sheffield Lab done in the late 1970s by Doug Sax with Erich Leinsdorf and the LA Philharmonic that was my test disc. No mastering on that recording.  The dynamics were difficult to keep the needle in the groove and the loudspeakers from sounding "loud", i.e., in my non-Klipsch era using planars from the early 80s to the mid-2000s.

 

That recording is spectacular still, if you can ignore the ticks and pops that have built up over 3 1/2 decades of use--something that I've always found difficult to do. 

 

Chris

 

I'm listening to a two-CD set of these same recordings--Leinsdorf and the LA Philharmonic playing Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet plus Stravinsky's The Firebird, and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Die Walküre, Der  Götterdämmerung, etc.  These are the most live CDs that I own.  They were produced direct-to-tape then transferred to CD with no mastering.  These two discs are my new CD reference for orchestral recordings.

 

Caveat emptor applies: they're extremely dynamic recordings--much more than anything else in this genre that I've heard. 

 

Chris

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