I play drums and just about any other "struck" style instrument. I don't rely on drum records to audition equipment because I've found this seems to be one of the easier instruments to reproduce. I use acoustic piano, brass, and of course the human voice - male and female.
Do you play an instrument/sing?
Personally, I'm a trombonist. Quite a bit of my audition is searching for something such that Joe Alessi sounds just the way he does when I actually see him at Carnegie/Avery-fisher. In other words, PHENOMENAL! Similarly, another part of it consists of listening to some brass heavy orchestral works, such as Mahler 3, Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz, Beethoven 5,Brahms 1,2,4, etc, Beethoven 3 (maybe slightly less brass-heavy), etc. Then I listen to some classic rock, just to sound how it deals with yet another part of the music that I listen to, but the initial two parts tend to be the more important.
Are you an instrumentalist/singer, and if so, how does it affect the way you audition equipment and/or listen to music.
Are you an instrumentalist/singer, and if so, how does it affect the way you audition equipment and/or listen to music.