What songs do you use to test HiFi speakers/amps/headphones?

robinbowes

english_bob said:

What makes a recording "audiophile quality"? Is that just another way of saying "stuff I think is really well recorded"?

Good question.

Essentially, yes it just means "well-recorded". But what does "well-recorded" mean? I think it means different things for different styles of music. For example, for classical music I'd want to hear a realistic-sounding ensemble (orchestra, quartet, piano, whatever), with a good stereo image and the right amount of room in the sound. In fact, I'd want something similar for acoustic jazz too. "Pop/rock" music (for want of a better term) is a bit different. For that, I'd be listening for a good frequency balance, no unwanted boom in the bass or harsh highs.

At the end of the day though, it's the performance that counts. For example, this is my favourite performance of Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto:

duotone

After cancelling my Google Play Music subscription months ago and going back to Spotify free, I’ve finally got around to setting up a playlist with the tracks mentioned.  

Unfortunately on Google Play Music once you cancel it won’t let you access any music or playlists...unlike Spotify.

roberty

Bit late to the party but I usually test speakers with some pre-loudness war glossy pop,

Return of the Mack


Notorious BIG Hypnotize


That stuff sounds noticeably better on better systems and has frequency extremes

Then something acoustic with lots of detail, like Miles Ahead


Then I put my slippers on

I'm lucky enough to have some PMC towers these days

edit: it appears my embedding has gone tits up

edit:  necrothread! Apologies

duotone

No worries @roberty ;
i can add them to my playlist.  What PMC model do you have?

roberty

@duotone Got some PB1i's from eBay for a steal.  Very fortunate to have them. The sort of thing you only buy once

duotone

Looks good, would love to get a pair of tower speakers, iif I had a big enough room for them to shine.

https://www.whathifi.com/pmc/pb1i/review

Nikc

The the - This is the day or Sweet bird of truth 
Roger waters - Pros and cons - or Amused to death. yes the whole album
Talk talk - happiness is esay
Springsteen - Thunder Road, Live
Pink Floyd - Us and Them
Bee Gees - Jive Talking 

Loads more but that will do it, I now run active AVI speakers just a little slice of heaven  
 

ICBM

Crowded House - Together Alone. Possibly the best-sounding album ever recorded.

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells 2 or Songs From Distant Earth if you really want to test the limits of frequency response...

octatonic

The latest Jamiroquai album is incredible to test speakers and headphones, especially Hot Property.

I also use Black Cow by Steely Dan, Grace by Devin Townsend and random Aphex Twin tunes.
Steel Panther is very well mixed.

I also use Volbeat ‘Counting Bodies’ to test midrange.
The guitars are a bit sharp and high in the mix for me and this is revealed on speakers with great midrange, like my Kii Three’s.
I don’t notice it on my other monitors, like BM6a’s or B&W 685’s which leads me to believe that song was mixed on speakers that had a bit of a reduced midrange.

munckee

I generally use classical or the wall to test a new sound system. When I was younger my best mate and I had a ritual of testing any new car stereo with the intro to money for nothing on full volume to see if the hairs on the back of your neck stood up!

prowla

Rush: Moving Pictures

Crowded House: Temple of Low Men

Level 42: World Machine

It Bites: Once Around The World

Thunder: Behind Closed Doors

Jeff Beck: Guitar Shop

System Of A Down: Toxicity

Neil Finn: Before And After

guitarfishbay

Nickelback - Follow You Home 

Thats the first one I go for these days.

west

some of my reference points from long ago ...

1. aja whole album really  ...

2. slave to the rhythm  miss grace jones ...

3. slave to love bryan ferry ...

4. absolute  scritty polliti ...

5. sailing cristopher cross ...

6. on the dunes  donald fagen...

7. Gaucho steely dan  ( my fave sd track of all time / black cow close second )

and many more ....

duotone

Cheers guys!  Willl add these to the playlist when I get the laptop turned on

ICBM

octatonic said:

The latest Jamiroquai album is incredible to test speakers and headphones, especially Hot Property.

Aha - I had always wondered what the point of Jamiroquai was, so thanks for answering that!

prowla

ICBM said:

Crowded House - Together Alone. Possibly the best-sounding album ever recorded.

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells 2 or Songs From Distant Earth if you really want to test the limits of frequency response...

Together Alone is a darned good one.

Have you listened to Before & After (Tim Finn)?

Grumpyrocker

I always use my favourite albums. There's no point me getting a system that does an amazing job of some "audiophile" jazz albums I would never normally listen to if Maiden's Seventh Son sounds crap with the gear.

ICBM

prowla said:

Have you listened to Before & After (Tim Finn)?

Strangely, I'm not a fan - I like him in Crowded House, the two Finn Brothers albums (the first one is one of my favourite albums ever), and when he did the concert album with Bic Runga and Dave Dobbyn... but I don't like his solo work, it irritates me for some reason.

Blueingreen

There's a Spotify playlist called "Songs To Test Headphones By" that has a lot of the songs on this thread on it.  I'm not hugely pernickety about audio quality but the past few weeks I've found it quite an entertaining list to stick on random play when out walking.  It's a very variable list so no-one's going to like everything on it, but the criteria being applied does seem to result in music that's good music (as opposed to stuff that's beautifully recorded but not very interesting otherwise).  There's also a classical equivalent that I think is equally well chosen.

vale