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Best songs to test speakers


Ryklipsch

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RY,

I personally don't have a favorite selection of songs to do this with. I do however take a range of different types to listen to the whole spectrum. Something accoustic, some jazz( preferably/ piano bass /sax/ etc), and something that I really like and know every note. Take something you like ! Compare what you have heard that music on and see what the "new " sounds like. I may even bring a little classical too.

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The key to music to test speakers with is that it first be a very good clean recording, with no distortion and such...but also have a wide variety of musical instruments in it, so that you can easily judge the equipment's reproduction of the music against what you know the real musical instrument sounds like.

One of my favorite songs to listen to a system with is "House at Pooh Corner", by Loggins and Messina from their "Sittin' In" album. It is a very clear recording mix, has mic-amplified acoustic guitar, voice, oboes, etc...all throughout it...a great test song...especially for upper midrange down through lower midbass.

Numerous cuts from Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like an Eagle" album are also good for this...As is the cut "I'd Love to Change the World" which features Alvin Lee on one of the cleanest electric guitar solos ever recorded...from the album "A Space in Time" by Ten Years After. Santana's "Caravanserai" album has some great cuts to see how the high-end through the lower mid-bass sounds on a system. For checking for quick, tight bass, "Urgent" from the Foreigner 4 album is a good one. For depth and clarity of female voice, Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love" is one helluva song. If you want to feel kick drums and such, then some of the cuts on Lionel Ritchie's "Can't Slow Down" album are great. Another one of my favorites in the rock venue is Joe Walsh's "Rocky Mountain Way", and his mic-amplified slide guitar on the James Gang's "Midnight Man". Again for female voice, you can pick from a number of Barbra Streisand, or Celine Dion cuts. Taking a number of the above cuts, adding in some well-recorded classical music, and jazz, and maybe a bit of blues...and you should have a pretty good testing session. Be sure to sprinkle in a bunch of piano and organ cuts, horns, and a variety of string bass, and cello, no matter what you do...to cover the whole spectrum. How a speaker and its components reproduce different types of percussion instruments, ie., bass drums, kettle drums, snare drums, cymbals, etc...is a good indicator of whether the system is an accurate reproducer, so keep that in mind.

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I use the Titanic Soundtrack; it has 22 Hz bass notes and mostly acoustic instruments, impeccably recorded, plus Celine Dion. I also use any of several Loreena McKennitt CDs. They are also mostly acoustic instruments, well recorded and she has a wonderful voice.

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My current stack of reference discs includes the wonderfully sultry and dramatic jazz renditions of Diana Krall in her 24-bit/96kHz Stepping Out (JustinTime, 2000).

(A Decade of Diana Enthralls With Krall, Stepping Out, The Early Recordings

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/archives/). This is the one that ultimately judges the texture, balance and tone of loudspeakers for me, but only after listening to other tracks. It has Dianas lush vocals, close-up cymbals, the wide frequency range and dynamics of the piano, the snap of drums, plus the chocolate thunk of acoustic bass.

I also like the DMP samplers, from Digital Music Products (DMP). They have close-up recordings of individual instruments. My CD reference stack also includes the three Stereophile magazine Test CD recordings ('90, '92 and '95), with more Test CDs on the way. These have only have test tones, a variety of quality music recordings, but also individual instrument solos, so you can evaluate simple notes on a stand alone basis. I play test tracks at slightly higher than normal listening levels. This brings the details out of the background noise. It spins the cream to the top.

There is a school of thought (J. Gordon Holt?) which says that you should NOT listen to recordings that you know intimately when reviewing a new component, since you have already formed opinions about how the music should sound. That you should listen to new recordings instead so that you can judge their merits afresh. I do both. I have to say that there is some merit in both approaches.

Also in my short stack is Tracy Chapmans New Beginning. Every since the punchy little ASL Wave 8 tube amplifiers with the charming Axiom Audio M3Tis made me rock to her songs, I try this disk with various loudspeaker and amplifier combinations to see if they recreate the same affect (http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0302/aslwave8.htm). Despite some notable qualities for a number of loudspeakers, the only ones that come close is the combination of my Bottlehead 2A3 Paramours with my big old corner horns. Their dynamics make me want to dance.

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Right on Dale Walker! Great tunes!

I thought of another one:

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon has some REALLY clean lows, and some decent dynamic range.

Also, King Crimson's double disk live set Absent Lovers has a great range of highs and lows. Three of a Perfect Pair live was made for klipsch!!! 16.gif

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Avantgarde - USA LLC, telephone 1-800-944-9537, www.avantgarde-usa.com., put out a list of 127 Reference CDs, that they use in demos. They say that there is no order of preference but the one they use most is Tears of Stone, by the Chieftans, guest Artists Joni Mitchell, Diana Krall, Natalie Merchant, Bonnie Raitt, Sisel, etc.

I enjoy #32 on the list which is Live at the 1990 Concord Jazz Festival, Third Set, which features Ernestine Anderson.

Enjoy The Music

Huhuru 10.gif

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And of course there is the obvious test( considering you have access)Audio generators and a sound room.)

I work for an Manufacturing co of electronic products.We do the "Engineering" thing first, with the mics and generators with O'scopes and printers then we , believe it or not bring in the average "Joe" and let them tell us what their opinion is and compare it to our Technical results and notes.

But since we've gotten specific (smile inputed here) .. Nobody mentioned any ELP or Robin Trower.

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I really like using the Fight Club sountrack. There is a track on ther with a great bass sweep with a lot of high end as well. Tracks 5 and & are especially good. I also think the Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack is really quite good. I usually try to test with a selection or two from each genre that i listen to. Mine range from the afore mentioned to Dillinger Escape Plan , Tool, Radiohead, Gorecki, John Fahey, but the Fight Club and Buena Vista albums are usually the best indicators of speaker quality. Oooh... I almost forgot, the Mark Hollis album is great.

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Some individual songs to try : I don't care anymore (phil collins: hello, I must be going), one trick pony (holly cole: romantically helpless), symphony of destruction (megadeath: countdown to extinction), and life is just a fantasy( aldo nova: misc burned disc). I also have a bass mechanik two disc set that has some good sweeps and pure tones down to 11 hz. In my car, the 20hz - 11 hz tracks are brutal.3.gif

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I'm not disagreeing with above. But perhaps you should condsider recordings which are less than magnificent.

In my opinion, speakers are the weak link in the audio chain. Once you upgrade to very good ones, i.e. Klipsch, you'll hear a lot of the effects of good recordings. More highs and lows and dynamics.

There are two effects which are typically reported about recordings which are not spectacular.

One is that some recordings from one's record collection sound poor for the first time. That might be in comparison to better ones. So the reaction is, there is something wrong with these speakers. There're not good for _______ fill in the blank.

After a bit of further listening, you come to realize that you're able to detect some undiscovered subtilties of the "poor" recordings. There is a lot in there you never recognized.

"Poor" recordings or not, it is common that people go through their collection and find everything sounds a bit different, and arguably better, with good speakers.

The bottom line is that it is entertaining to find the best recordings. None the less, a good speaker will let you hear more of what's in any recording, good and bad. That might be a better test than anything else.

Gil

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