What Are Your Reference Discs? or Specific Reference Tracks

Rather than list tracks, I'd refer you to this video and comment:

"If you want to learn to evaluate sound equipment, the most important factor to start with is being comfortable with your stereo. Just take many hours, listening to a variety of music you like. 

Do not use a limited number of records because they sound so good. That’s ear candy, used in every hifi demo room all over the world. 

Simple jazz combo’s making impressive music will be impressive on a broad variety of equipment. That’s why on hifi shows you hear them in every room. 

Pop and rock know their ear candy as well: Dire Straits, Kari Bremnes, Diana Krall and so on. Nothing wrong with the music by the way but it’s not too difficult to reproduce properly. 

There is no need to play classical music if you don’t enjoy it but playing acoustically recorded performances might be a good idea. Think of folk music, Fado, flamenco and so on. 

Again vary in genre for each genre will use its own difficult instruments. 

Visiting shows and listening to all kinds of setups at that show can be very instructive if you are allowed to listen to music of your choice - and thus no ear candy."

https://youtu.be/lkgRzLygNrU

@fuzztone What is your post referring to? 

Anything but "Year of the Cat."

The notion that there are no "test tracks" in audio is ludicrous.

Ever test drive a car? Of course. Why? Various reasons.
To test limits.
To test special circumstances.
To test normal driving conditions.
Etc.

Test tracks can be ear candy and test limits.
Test tracks can be normal stuff and that gives information, too.
Test tracks can be badly recorded or old compressed stuff.

One can pay close attention, or just listen relaxedly, or even pay oblique attention. One can even go out of the room and see how it sounds out there. (Ever get drawn into a room from the hallway at an audio show? Something brought you inside even though you were far from the sweet spot. What was that? That’s relevant, too.)

The argument against test tracks needs to be understood for what it typically (and inexplicitly) is - an argument against a track which isn’t comprehensively representative of the various kinds of music which could/will be played or the various ways we could/will listen to it.

It’s merely good scientific method to reject the pretense that a test can pretend to be more than what it is. But that doesn’t mean such tests don’t have any value -- only that their value needs to be specified in a proportionate way relative to the overall experimental question.

And as for "Year of the Cat" well that track is just fine. It’s just that MC testifies here against needing test tracks and elsewhere he mentions Year of the Cat multiple times. Kinda funny.

@millercarbon No, I do understand the difference. But if it helps you to think I don't, please -- help yourself. After all, it's the year of the cat, right? ;-)

I was just surfing old music I felt like listening to, and the Lovett album immediately struck me as especially expressive of my system’s improved capabilities. It’s a great reference disk.

It seems clear that MC uses Year of the Cat as a standard reference track, and its bona fides as a reference track are proved by the way it renders the various instruments. (Viz., "sounded more like sax than ever,", "each note on a piano is three strings…and its way more real now than ever," "things are rendered so clear and distinct from each other.") Indeed, the track exhibits this more the other tracks/artists he mentions in the quotation, so if Year of the Cat stands above/beyond them, I cannot see how it does *except as* a reference track. Unless it is just above/beyond them for the musical content, in which case it wouldn’t be necessary to dwell on the acoustic details.