what are your fave tracks for testing your speakers?
recently i have used my normal speaker test material to death, and im looking for opinions from others and their favourite test session tracks, whether they be studio recordings or live, classic or rock, electronica, whatever tickles your fancy!
In this way hopefully together we can form a good list of testing material for those loudspeaker builders amongst us.
Ill start with a few of mine:
Foo Fighters-'skin and bones' -(a live acoustic 'unplugged' type album, studio mastered, with a great audience ambiance)
nirvana-'unplugged in new york' - similar to the above.
bjork-'best of'- great vocals in general, and some really deep synthy bass stuff to test LF extension and flatness in room.
Pearl jam-'lost dogs'- a collection of b-sides, demos that never made albums, and other recordings with a great 'press-record-and-play' rough, natural, band practice feel to some tracks, which i love, warts and all.
So now ive bored you all, please feel free to contribute any material you like to listen to in the process of testing your speakers/amp/etc, surely not evryone on here likes Diana Krall........whoever she is
recently i have used my normal speaker test material to death, and im looking for opinions from others and their favourite test session tracks, whether they be studio recordings or live, classic or rock, electronica, whatever tickles your fancy!
In this way hopefully together we can form a good list of testing material for those loudspeaker builders amongst us.
Ill start with a few of mine:
Foo Fighters-'skin and bones' -(a live acoustic 'unplugged' type album, studio mastered, with a great audience ambiance)
nirvana-'unplugged in new york' - similar to the above.
bjork-'best of'- great vocals in general, and some really deep synthy bass stuff to test LF extension and flatness in room.
Pearl jam-'lost dogs'- a collection of b-sides, demos that never made albums, and other recordings with a great 'press-record-and-play' rough, natural, band practice feel to some tracks, which i love, warts and all.
So now ive bored you all, please feel free to contribute any material you like to listen to in the process of testing your speakers/amp/etc, surely not evryone on here likes Diana Krall........whoever she is
lol well music inspires differences in opinion more than almost anything else, except maybe religion or politics.
the selection of tracks i listed was some of many, which i consider well recorded(albeit studio mixed in conventional manner) and are just some of what i could have posted. in no way was i meant to 'cut any responses off at the knees'. i also have a Bose test CD which sounds very good, which contains various classical, operatic, and brazilian music.
everyones opinions are valid and welcome, i would love to hear what you would use to to listen and consider good for the testing purpose, Bill, even IF i cant stand the music, ALL music has its merits.
the selection of tracks i listed was some of many, which i consider well recorded(albeit studio mixed in conventional manner) and are just some of what i could have posted. in no way was i meant to 'cut any responses off at the knees'. i also have a Bose test CD which sounds very good, which contains various classical, operatic, and brazilian music.
everyones opinions are valid and welcome, i would love to hear what you would use to to listen and consider good for the testing purpose, Bill, even IF i cant stand the music, ALL music has its merits.
I like to start with cable music channels as my source- classic country for vocals, 'classic jazz' (vocals, upright double bass, slow sax), folk channel for accoustic guitars, electronica for midbass and dare I say, top forty for synthesized bass and clean studio production. I like to round it off with some vinyl: Thriller, Beastie boys, and finally Boomtown Rats Fine Art of Surfacing. Very few builds pass my Boomtown Rats testing- probably too many years of listening to them on my Klipshe Choruses.
The irony is that i now seldom listen to the klipshes. The conflict is most of my builds involve smaller cheap speakers I aquire from MCM so I've set some lofty goals for myself.
My philospy about DIY is simple. Anyone can take a great driver and make it sound great (you throw enough cash at anything....), I like to take an alright budget driver and make it sound good.
The irony is that i now seldom listen to the klipshes. The conflict is most of my builds involve smaller cheap speakers I aquire from MCM so I've set some lofty goals for myself.
My philospy about DIY is simple. Anyone can take a great driver and make it sound great (you throw enough cash at anything....), I like to take an alright budget driver and make it sound good.
i wish I could do that... i think my TV digibox has poor impedance matching with my amplifier, as it always sounds lacklustre and bass light in comparison to a CD.
Ah high speed dirt...that takes me back. lol (different album i think but i can still hear the words: 'a toute la monde, a toute mes ami, je vous aime, je doit partir')...hehe
the GF is bonkers about Tracy chapman, she looked a bit bloke-ish (Tracy not the GF, hehe), but she does have one unique voice. 'Fast car' is a must play on my stereo in heavy listening sessions.
The Calling on Supernatural (Santana album) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
When the bass kicks in, you're looking at content to 40Hz, with little volume reduction from the studio. Lovely excursion if you happen to like that sort of thing. Put Your Lights On is a good one from that, too.
Apart from that, the Stanley Road album by Paul Weller has some good piano bits in. It's a generally well-done album, if a little compressed.
Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits - listen for the texture of the bass guitar. Few speakers get that right. The rest of the Money for Nothing album is good, particularly Private Investigations. Listen for the size of the room the drums are in.
Radiohead - 15 Step. Bass down at 30Hz if you want it. Plenty of harmonics so lesser stereos can still play it. You should still be able to hear the fundamental though. I cooked some speakers with this one.
That's probably about it.
Chris
When the bass kicks in, you're looking at content to 40Hz, with little volume reduction from the studio. Lovely excursion if you happen to like that sort of thing. Put Your Lights On is a good one from that, too.
Apart from that, the Stanley Road album by Paul Weller has some good piano bits in. It's a generally well-done album, if a little compressed.
Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits - listen for the texture of the bass guitar. Few speakers get that right. The rest of the Money for Nothing album is good, particularly Private Investigations. Listen for the size of the room the drums are in.
Radiohead - 15 Step. Bass down at 30Hz if you want it. Plenty of harmonics so lesser stereos can still play it. You should still be able to hear the fundamental though. I cooked some speakers with this one.
That's probably about it.
Chris
Funny thing that, i grew up hearing Dire Straits and recently got a copy of Sultans of Swing, as it was one of my late fathers fave tunes. I have to say the sound is great. lovely JUST clipped guitar on some of his finger picked notes, you can almost hear the string bouncing of the frets! Drum sound are generally good, with probably the most neutral and uncoloured ride cymbal ive heard in a long time.
Radiohead, well i agree, i have most of their stuff and some really kicks the cr@p out of excursion limits if i play loud, and i agree...you can definitely hear the fundamental
Sass Jordan - You don't have to remind me off the "Racine" album.
This is an excellent track. starts off with acoustic guitar, I listen for full body and clean string pick sounds. then Sass starts singing. her voice is a bit raspy and i know in 5 seconds if the system has it or not. her voice falls into a difficult range and a speaker will instantly sound thin or muddy or if it is a pa instantly you know if the horns are right. it will absolutely kill a bad speaker system. THEN the band kicks in loud! I listen for it to sound strained or fatiguing at that point.
Milla Jovovich - The Divine Comedy. very well recorded cd. deep bass, good imaging. sucks you right into the mix.
Toy Matinee - recorded on analog with Dolby SR. great album. this is a pre MP3 craze recording. very clean.
Bella Fleck - Flight of the cosmic Hippo. careful with this track. lesser speakers might just have there woofer cones fall out and flop around on the floor. and if the woofers survive, then the intense transients of the banjo plucks might vaporize a tweeter instantly!
Dallas Wind Symphony - Tritico. good bass, spacious imaging, listen for straining on the full orchestra parts
This is an excellent track. starts off with acoustic guitar, I listen for full body and clean string pick sounds. then Sass starts singing. her voice is a bit raspy and i know in 5 seconds if the system has it or not. her voice falls into a difficult range and a speaker will instantly sound thin or muddy or if it is a pa instantly you know if the horns are right. it will absolutely kill a bad speaker system. THEN the band kicks in loud! I listen for it to sound strained or fatiguing at that point.
Milla Jovovich - The Divine Comedy. very well recorded cd. deep bass, good imaging. sucks you right into the mix.
Toy Matinee - recorded on analog with Dolby SR. great album. this is a pre MP3 craze recording. very clean.
Bella Fleck - Flight of the cosmic Hippo. careful with this track. lesser speakers might just have there woofer cones fall out and flop around on the floor. and if the woofers survive, then the intense transients of the banjo plucks might vaporize a tweeter instantly!
Dallas Wind Symphony - Tritico. good bass, spacious imaging, listen for straining on the full orchestra parts
IMO, the specifics may not be as important as the what. I use a lot of male and female vocals, without much complex background. This exposes resonances very quickly. Much recorded bass is very processed and unnatural.
Everybody uses Dire Straits, and I love the music, but think it's lousy for evaluation. There's a Sheffield record/CD that's much better for testing the impact and low frequencies. It's a combo CD of The Sheffield Drum Record and The Sheffield Track Record. Google should find it.
Some well worn test albums include Jennifer Warnes Famous Blue Raincoat and Joan Baez Diamonds and Rust. Nellie McKay Get Away From Me has some revealing piano, plus it's fun to listen to. Vastly more obscure, when Frankie Laine sings "...cause I'm a rover who has crossed over", and chuckles slightly, in Sunny Side of the Street, on one of his greatest hits albums, if you can't prevent yourself from chuckling too, your system sucks.
For traditional rock, played louder than hell, I prefer Deep Purple's Perfect Stranger. Every song is about sex. Finally, there's an Archiv CD of Pachelbel, Bach, Handel & Vivaldi that's very good. 410-502-2.
Conrad
Everybody uses Dire Straits, and I love the music, but think it's lousy for evaluation. There's a Sheffield record/CD that's much better for testing the impact and low frequencies. It's a combo CD of The Sheffield Drum Record and The Sheffield Track Record. Google should find it.
Some well worn test albums include Jennifer Warnes Famous Blue Raincoat and Joan Baez Diamonds and Rust. Nellie McKay Get Away From Me has some revealing piano, plus it's fun to listen to. Vastly more obscure, when Frankie Laine sings "...cause I'm a rover who has crossed over", and chuckles slightly, in Sunny Side of the Street, on one of his greatest hits albums, if you can't prevent yourself from chuckling too, your system sucks.
For traditional rock, played louder than hell, I prefer Deep Purple's Perfect Stranger. Every song is about sex. Finally, there's an Archiv CD of Pachelbel, Bach, Handel & Vivaldi that's very good. 410-502-2.
Conrad
I strongly advise you try that Radiohead track.
Here's a link
YouTube - Radiohead - In Rainbows - 15 step
While the sounds aren't exactly natural, it's nice to know if your system can play such a thing comfortably (with 14dB Linkwitz gain at those frequencies, I know my sub doesn't enjoy it).
'A Hot Piece Of Grass' and 'Weapons Of Grass Destruction' are my favourites.
The latest has got unmixed multitrack versions on it but I haven't got 'round to buying it yet. I think you will need Garage Band for that which comes free with any Mac. John Wheeler aka Barley Scotch is (part-) owner of Renaissance Studios, Nashville and, like most in the recording or movie world, a confirmed Apple user.
Amazon.com: Works by Nishimura Miyoshi Takemitsu Matsushita: Akira Nishimura, Akira Miyoshi, Toru Takemitsu, Isao Matsushita, Minoru Miki, Kroumata Percussion Ensemble: Music
Very silent sounds that come out of the nothing. If you have the slightest hiss, mist or noise floor it comes from your system.
Very silent sounds that come out of the nothing. If you have the slightest hiss, mist or noise floor it comes from your system.
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