Your Test Album/Track

hello Andy! for testing new components, i normally use albums that i deeply know and like.

i.e.: the final cut, pink floyd (83), as i was  born and raised hearing this stuff.

through memory, i can diferentiate the nuances of a specific music from diferent sources.

by being an aquired music/ instead of a new one, distracts me much less, focusing on the analisys of the system.

(sorry for the english)

I stick to something I know well because it helps me to estimate gains and losses (or neither) to the resolution and musical enjoyment. I tend to "listen" more than "test" but as with anything one is familiar with, I will be listening for certain things. I don't have a test track or two. I have a lot of music, some of which I've been listening to for 40+ years. A playlist will usually include certain tracks but I won't buy a one trick pony that plays eg 2112 brilliantly but can't handle Mahler's 5th.  This is why we do home auditions and take our time. I expect that if we didn't live in proximity to a dealer who was so helpful and accommodating, we would have spent less. And probably wouldn't spend so much time listening to music.

Track 1 (Prologue) from John Williams' score to Hook (1991):

Reasons:

• Despite the film being execrable, this is a great John Williams score with a fabulously natural recording engineered by the great Shawn Murphy
• Melodic ideas are passed between sections of the orchestra which allows you to hear how a system behaves with different instruments
• Towards the end there are some soft bass drum thumps that go down to (if not beyond) the lower limit of human hearing. If a system can reproduce these clearly and easily, I know I'm on to something good

 Oh, and it's only 90 seconds long so ideal for those with short attention spans like me.

Mark

 a lot of people are using London Grammar - Hey Now, but any tracks from this album are great recordings - also The Wall Live Roger Waters esp Mother

then I use any of the below

Tori Amos The Beakeeper,

Elton John - Captain Fantsatic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy esp track one

Paul Simon - Graceland

Antony,

I always take a mixture, but Captain Fantastic is a must at every dem! Great track.

Stu

Abbey Road has been my go-to test album. Familiar, well-mastered tracks are always a good point of reference. At the same time I'm starting to wonder whether a familiar, poorly-mastered track or two wouldn't serve equal value in testing.

Strong...by London Grammar is good too....

joerand posted:

Abbey Road has been my go-to test album. Familiar, well-mastered tracks are always a good point of reference. At the same time I'm starting to wonder whether a familiar, poorly-mastered track or two wouldn't serve equal value in testing.

I often think the same, Joe. After all, if a component change can make a formerly unenjoyable piece sound good then it must be doing something right or better. Right?

David Bowie - Time, from Aladdin Sane (using the original RCA CD version); especially great for testing brightness in a system. This is always the first track I use to try out any system change.

There are plenty of great sounding recordings that work well on most systems, but I make sure to include more challenging tracks aswell to test bass, PRaT, soundstage, separation etc. Of course it needs to be songs you know well.

Nick

Align by Nina Nesbitt.....ace track

Testing you do to challenge the limits. I have three core things I use...

Jessey Norman - Four Letzte Lieder

Dream Theater - Scenes of a Memory

U2 - Vertigo

an installation which can deliver on all three is good.

Stampie posted:

David Bowie - Time, from Aladdin Sane (using the original RCA CD version); especially great for testing brightness in a system. This is always the first track I use to try out any system change.

There are plenty of great sounding recordings that work well on most systems, but I make sure to include more challenging tracks aswell to test bass, PRaT, soundstage, separation etc. Of course it needs to be songs you know well.

Nick

''Perfect'' demo tracks are good if you're trying to impress your brother in law and not have him think your crazy for spending ridiculous amounts of money on a system that makes half your music collection sound broken.

My (ongoing) aim is to assemble a system that will allow me to listen to all but the very worst recordings. I therefore tend to avoid the trap of demoing with perfect recordings. It's as unrealistic as road testing a car on perfect roads only.

I agree totally, I want as much as possible of my collection to sound good. 

Mine caveat though, on my original Naim trek 12 years ago I had a bunch of challenging tracks as a demo only to find out later that poor mastering was the cause of a lot of these issues. 

SJB. 

There are a number of tracks on this LP that I use to show off.  The highlight is Skin Game.  Across the Borderline is a Freddy Fender vocal piece.   The band includes Ry Cooder, Sam "The Sham" Samudio, Freddy Fender, Jim Dickinson, Jim Keltner,  John Hiatt, and members of John Hiatt's band and Los Lobos.    I have never seen it on CD except with the Soundtrack to Alamo Bay.

My test album has to be Fink - Hard believer. Beautiful album. I love every track (which doesn't happen very often). In particular I use track 2, Green and the blue. There's so much going on, so many layers that on a lesser system it difficult to listen to. On a well balanced setup the track comes alive and you can hear every detail. If I haven't felt the need to turn the volume down then to my ears it's a good system 

Finkfan posted:

My test album has to be Fink - Hard believer. Beautiful album. I love every track (which doesn't happen very often). In particular I use track 2, Green and the blue. There's so much going on, so many layers that on a lesser system it difficult to listen to. On a well balanced setup the track comes alive and you can hear every detail. If I haven't felt the need to turn the volume down then to my ears it's a good system 

+1 

I listen to different types of music so I don't have only one test album, however, the first album I usually play, because I know it very well and it's very well recorded, is Shawn Mullins and Soul's Core.  I then move onto Simon and Garfunkel, Rush, Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Dire Straits - again, because I know them so well rather than for how well they are recorded.  

Stampie/Nick,

Very interesting your comments on David Bowie's Time. This is a track I've taken along to demo in the past especially as things get very complex after 4 minutes. Can you hear the flute which comes in at circa 4.40 on the original RCA CD one my reference points.

My three demo tracks I take along to dealers demo are:-

David Bowie - Somebody Up There Likes Me

Annette Peacock - This Feel Within

Lou Reed - Power & The Glory

I know every nuance of these tracks and always a moment of joy when listening to a new piece of kit reveals some aspect of the music previously unheard.

Agree with other posts that it's all about assembling a system that plays all types of music but you must have a reference point when you turn up at the dealers?

Yeah I agree. You must know the music you take very well. A 'better' system my not present your music the way you want to hear it. And who wants that?

Two albums do it for me when testing components;

Gordon Giltrap - Fear of the Dark

Level 42 - Level 42

David