What source do you use to demo equipment?


Hello. After decades of enjoying my home audio system, I find myself beginning to look for my final end-all dedicated music system. So I am beginning to look at speakers, amps and source components.

The question is: with all of the new streaming services and hardware, when you go into an audio salon, what do you listen to as your baseline music and via what format? I used to take a few CDs along, which were familiar to test the musicality of equipment. With all of the streaming and source hardware variables, what do you use? I had an experience recently where I had a salon queue up a familiar song via their streamer and it sounded horrible. It lacked any dynamics compared to what I was familiar with. I went home and listened to it on my streamer and the same thing. It sounded terrible compared to the CD version.

So how do you get the consistency of sound for listening tests? What sources do you listen to when testing?

 

cooperdude6

Streaming is mainly it these days for good reason. It holds all the cards. 
 

If you don’t like what you hear it could be anything.  That’s why auditioning is important.  You should always be able to recognize good sound when you hear it, regardless of source format. 

Take some of your favorite CDs with you - any worthwhile audio store is sure to have a few decent spinners on demo. Much of the music on streaming services such as Qobuz has been remastered and compressed, so it won’t have the punchy dynamic range that might have characterized the original CD.

The streaming version of the song that you mentioned must be of poor quality.  I stream with Qobuz and I haven't run into much that sounds inferior to cd. It's usually better. 

Since you have a streamer, I would suggest identifying songs that sound good on your system.  If you get really familiar with those songs, it will help you decide if the system that you are auditioning sounds better. 

I’ve compiled some favorite songs from multiple cds that I take with me from a wide range of musical styles.

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