How can you evaluate a system with highly processed music?


Each to their own.

But can you really evaluate a system by listening to highly processed, electric/electronic music? How do you know what that sounds like?

I like to listen to voices and acoustic music that is little processed. 

Instruments like piano, violin, etc. 

And the human voice. And the joy of hearing back up singers clearly, etc.

Even if full instrumentation backing a natural sounding voice.

(eg.: singer/songwriters like Lyle Lovett or Leonard Cohen)

There is a standard and a point of reference that can be gauged.

 

mglik

To be sure, if you're going to be scientific about it, it'd certainly be best to use recordings of acoustic instruments to judge a component or a system's fidelity. It'd be best for the buyer to have a familiarity with the sound of acoustic instruments, as well. The thing is, hi-fi components are a consumer item, and it's the individual consumer who ought to have the last word with their purchase. If somebody just loves bloated mid-bass, I'm not going to be the traffic cop (except if the bloated mid-bass lover shares a wall with me).

That is called the absolute sound.... yes that is very helpful, but you NEED to play the music you listen to. No good reason to buy a system that makes the music you listen to sound bad. 

J.Gordon Holt insisted you couldn’t. Spending a day in a recording studio can be an illuminating learning experience. ;-)

Consumer suggestion: record some live music (or even people speaking) yourself with a pair of high quality mics plugged into a good reel-to-reel recorder, and use that recording as demo material.

I suppose it depends on your objective.  Well recorded acoustic instruments and unprocessed vocals are a far better reference to evaluate a sound system IMHO, but it's best if you're actually familiar the sound of the instruments....not everyone has a ton of exposure to such things.    Electronic bass thumps may have their place.  

Obviously I weren’t at the studio and I don’t know how the song sounds like. Once I play the song I will know how the song sounds like. I then play that song on many different systems. I then continue the process like that. This is how I evaluate.