Most Challenging CD

I am noting all of your CD favorites for this system torture test. Certainly, as has been noted, soft kissy passages sung by a sultry siren have to be kissable. Also, the ability of a system to play loud passages while simultaneously tinkling a triangle is also just as necessary.

Jax2 mentions the necessity of keeping the orchestra intact during loud crescendos. Come to think of it, the finality of Bolero is a good test. On most systems it sounds like a raging wounded bull. I know. I have had plenty of those systems.

The problem of citing voice is that discussion can dissolve into how many angels on the head of a pin. How many times have you heard someone saying, that's not what she sounds like on my system. There's no arguing that.

There are clues as to whether you are getting a good rendition of the singer. How human they sound is one. Can you hear them breathing in?

Rja, I cracked up on that one. Tanks...are you serious?

I Love music. We had the pleasure of having best seats in several music venues during the Holidays.

Some folks I have known like to tote around their system check discs. We all had heard the same discs ad infitinum. It didn't matter.... Here we go again.

One only has to know what live music sounds like to ascertain an educated opinion on music CDs.

Jim, you are assuming too much. Jax2 in his summation of what I am hearing is
spot on. Elizabeth brings up a salient point, but I don't think she assumes a
system can do a realistic pistol firing while carrying a voice to full fruition.

Bass has little to do with the pistol report. It is the excited treble and mid ribbons
that react so.

Elizabeth, let's go your way. I like any Julie London CD for breathy singing. It is a good challenging CD. Another singer that challenges is Katie Malua. One person I know told me he hates her singing. "Sounds like she is singing from the bottom of a toilet." If one can get her full warm voice up front, she will amaze.

Hey, Shadorne, I just got finished playing Dire Straits, "Brother in Arms." This is one of the best produced CDs ever.

Oh yeah, there are those discs that are produced in an insanely high level. I don't count those, because their dynamic headroom is restricted.

Geoffkait, did you know one of those Dafos recordings are selling for $125 on Amazon?

Magfan, that sounds like the winner for realism attack. If the shot has a ear piercing snap and shock to it's delivery, it should make you jump.

Magfan,LOL.

Montejay, getting all those percussion instruments right would be a good trick for a system.

I have another along similar vein, Kodo Heartbeat Drummers of Japan - Sheffield Lab. This one begins with with player calling to each other. The disc makes use of the full dynamic range given by CDs. The voices are faint compared to what follows. In fact, at Amazon, if you look at comments, lots of people complain about the 4 minutes of silence before drumming starts. This CD separates boy toys from real music makers. Bringing the voices in clearly requires a comparatively high setting of the volume knob.

When the drumming starts, it pushes all big drivers full go. Also, the tweeter and midrange will get a good workout creating the pitch, strike, and reverb. A later time in the CD the drums are silent. Somewhere way back there a whisper of a clatter. It steadily comes closer until it becomes a din of crashing drum sticks.