Music to evaluate Speakers and System

Another stress test is this:

Erich Kunzel & The Cincinnati Pops - Very Best of Erich Kunzel: Top 20. Lots of variety and almost all of it dynamic.

I disagree that one should use whatever one likes. A system should play everything well unless one is happy to predispose what one can play and enjoy to one genre or another.

A nasty test is the Sheffield Drum Track - Track 1. Try this at realistically high SPL levels and see if it holds together properly without sounding compressed, dull, warmly resonant or boomy. If this difficult percussion test fails then there is no need to waste time auditioning other much easier music. Suprisingly Piano (another percussion instrument) is also tough for most systems - so I would cue that up next after drums. Next I would try brass instruments...as most "Hi-fi" is often too polite to do brass instruments proper justice...they should be able to sound loud and brash (edgy) and placed forward in the soundstage - sometimes but not always mellow and subdued.

Be wary of spending time on female vocals, saxophone or clarinet, as these are generally pretty easy for any system. Male vocals are significantly harder and as someone mentioned...keeping it all together at realistic levels on a big jazz band or Wagner can tell you an awful lot too.

Really one should methodically go through each instrument one by one to check timbre...some systems hold together at high levels but sound too much like "hi-fi" and just aren't natural sounding on the detail...and one needs both for long term satisfaction. Some systems do everything well and then fall down over a specific frequency or instrument - this can be a long term irritation that can drive you crazy. And some systems only do one thing exceptionally well...this to me is the worst scenario if you like music, as this kind of system, no matter how impressive or magical, is only good to demo one or two tracks!

Nowadays a delicate female vocalist is the test signal. This reflects how audiophile priorities have changed.

LOL...yeah that was my warning too but in those days Wives accepted big ugly boxes. Since the 80's we have been told that tall narrow elegant speakers with tincy wincy woofers are the best and now the wives will never let us go back to the kind of things The Who used....ahh the skill with which the industry has recognized the WAF marketing opportunity of tall and narrow speakers and they do indeed do a great job on female vocals...

Midirons,

I really enjoyed that article thanks for sharing.

This recommendation below is a real gem!

play a larger number of recordings of vastly different styles and recording technique on two different systems to hear which system reveals more differences between the recordings.

Since recordings are never totally accurate in and of themselves, it makes sense to see how a system handles a wide variety of music. Ignoring, for a moment, the way you enjoy hearing Britney Spears "Hit me one more time" bass to sound....but rather by concentrating on whether a system shows up more nuamces on each recording and between one recording and another. This means that rather than a "beautiful" or "sugar coated" sound contest (liking the way it makes Britney's bass shake the room) you are aiming for a resolving system that lets you distinctly hear more of what is or isn't on each recording. You are keeping score by how a system makes each recording more unique and distinctive relative to the next reocording and not simply how "pleasant" it is able to sound. You are also checking that nothing throws up a huge red flag that the system is overly emphazing anything too much..if it does then all recordings will have a certain slant to them.

This is a very analytical way to approach it but it avoids the pitfall that your favorite "demo" recordings are quite likely to happen to be the ones that sound best to you on your own existing system....and a better system may not always throw at you what you like or expected with your favorite tracks!

{quote] Mahler Symphony No.1 with Zander on Telarc [/quote]

I agree! Wow. I met Benjamin last time I was in Boston. What a demanding character - he sure knows how get the best out of an orchestra!