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Gear / Technical Help => Playback Forum => Topic started by: Chris K on January 27, 2006, 11:12:33 AM
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I'm am looking for ideas to compile a reference disc for audio playback gear. I'm looking at getting some upgraded speakers and receiver, and I'm just trying to get a feel for what some of you may be using, and what format...16bit, 24bit, 5.1, SACD etc.
Here is what I was thinking of putting together, all 16bit from cd's I already have:
Breath - Pink Floyd
Tom Sawyer - Rush
Jupiter, & Mars - Holtz Plantes by London Symphony Orchestra
I Feel Free - Cream
The Wheel - Jerry Garcia
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I'd recommend the following:
Full albums, pick a favorite track:
dmb: crash
Keb Mo: Just like you
Paula Cole: This fire
Sarah Mclachlan : Surfacing
Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms
Specifically: Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Throw it all away" from there "Coil" album. The song "Rings" from Coil is also an excellent track to reference with.
I'm drawing a blank, but I'm sure there's tons of reference recordings that I'm missing out in listing.
Best thing to do is pick material you are very familiar with, so its engrained in your memory. That's the easiest way to pick out flaws in speaker rigs.
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I have normally used:
1. Zappa - Waka/Jawaka - Can you overwelm the speakers? Lose image?
2. Coltrane - Blue Train - Do I enjoy the tone of tweeters? Are the cross-overs seemless?
3. Muddy AUD - How revealing are the speakers?
4. Dicks Picks 3 - Is this the sound I want?
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i use miles davis kinda blue a lot- i know that disc end to end.
also i really like using puccini arias since they tend to test out vocals so well.
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DVD-A of American Beauty - bass in Sugar Magnolia
Brubeck Take Five -Imaging
Kentucky Colonels - extremes of imaging
Stanley Turrentine Ballads - tone of a spitty, spitty saxophone
opera with vocals which transit the crossover frequencies of the speakers
any of the Stereophile magazine test disks with bass warbles, imaging tests, and excellent two mic live recordings
I vary in what I use to test so that I don't "burn in" an expectated result
good luck !
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Last week I went to listen to the Gallo Ref 3's on Musical Fidelity gear and brought:
Herbie Hancock Headhunters to test for low end bumpin and funkability. ;D
Vivaldi concerto for strings (Dorian), transparency on more delicate tracks and imaging.
My Phish 2/20/03 allstate FOB: DPA4022(ORTF)>V3 to see how well the live sound and big bass of a PA system translates to playback.
Dead 5/8/77II just because I am very familiar with this disc, love the fat round low end and Jer's vocals.
Beethoven symphony #5, Benjamin Zander conducting, Telarc records.
Delos records has some cool CD's called "engineer's choice" with a variety of very high fidelity tracks from a variety of sources.
http://www.delosmus.com/
As well as some classical piano, violin, and vocal recordings I have made recently. All DPA4022(ORTF)>V3>VXpocket (24/44.1)>Waves L2 dither for CDR.
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1. Radiohead - Kid A - Kid A: Treble Extension/Sparkle, Stringed Instrument Tone
2. Chris Thile - Not All Who Wonder Are Lost - Big Sam Thompson: Instrument Separation, Coherency
3. Norah Jones - Come Away with Me SACD - Come Away with Me: Female Vocals
4. Ryan Adams - Hearbreaker SACD - Call Me on Your Way Back Home: Male Vocals
5. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme - A Love Supreme - Brass Instrument Tone
6. Yo-Yo Ma - Silk Road Journeys SACD - Legend of Herleen: Bass Extension/Impact/Texture
7. Eliot Smith - Either/Or - Between the Bars: Forgiveness
8. Led Zeppelin - How the West Was Won - Blackdog: Immediacy, Electric Guitar, Ability to Rock
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David Grisman-Dawgwood (rhythm & pace)
Tori Amos-Beekeeper (female vocals)
Rachel Z Trio-Moon at the Window (piano)
Chris
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Nice suggestions... I've been bringing Further In by Greg Brown with me when I audition gear and it's a great one if you like natural music. It's one of those recordings that is deceptively simple (recorded here: www.pachydermstudio.com (http://www.pachydermstudio.com)), and features a wide range of tones from lap slide guitar (Kelly Joe Phelps) and beautiful backing vocals (Kate McKenzie) down to acoustic bass and Greg's incomparably deep voice. This is my litmus test disc. If this doesn't sound like 'real music', then it's on to the next piece.
It tends to shut people up, too, which is nice.
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10,000 Maniacs - In My Tribe
Like the Weather
COIL - Toad the Wet Sprocket
Whatever I Fear
Ingenue - k.d. lang
Constant Craving
Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell
Court and Spark
Kind Of Blue - Miles Davis
Blue In Green
Come Dance With Me - Frank Sinatra w/ Billy May and His Orchestra
Day In Day Out
Rachminanoff: The Bells - Robert Shaw Atlanta Sympony Orchestra & Chorus
III. Presto
Nocturnes of John Field - John O'Conor, piano
Nocturne in F major: Andante
All these recordings show various things about a playback system and cover all the ground I need to evaluate one at this point.
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Now add:
The Derek Trucks Band - Songlines
I'm not sure which track yet, but Mike Mattison's voice is so centered and stable I thought it was coming out of my center channel speaker.
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What? no Flim and the BB's?
Matt
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What? no Flim and the BB's?
Matt
:lol:
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What? no Flim and the BB's?
Matt
Flim and the BB's were among the first jazz artists to release a compact disc. Not reference quality stuff however.
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What? no Flim and the BB's?
Matt
Flim and the BB's were among the first jazz artists to release a compact disc. Not reference quality stuff however.
I worked as a salesman for medium-end a/v equiptment in the 80's when cd's were first starting to get mainstream. The big thing in thoes days was a designation on the disk that was ADA, AAD or DDD, which if I remember right was recorded in - mastered in - and the final format as the last letter. Flim and the BB's were among the first to be produced as DDD or direct to digital cd's. Flim and the BB's were on the "recomended demo list" for speaker manufacture's like Advent, and Cerwin Vega. Not highend stuff and certainly not referance material by current audiophile standards I'm sure. More than anything else I wondered if anyone remembered them.
Matt
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What? no Flim and the BB's?
Matt
Flim and the BB's were among the first jazz artists to release a compact disc. Not reference quality stuff however.
I worked as a salesman for medium-end a/v equiptment in the 80's when cd's were first starting to get mainstream. The big thing in thoes days was a designation on the disk that was ADA, AAD or DDD, which if I remember right was recorded in - mastered in - and the final format as the last letter. Flim and the BB's were among the first to be produced as DDD or direct to digital cd's. Flim and the BB's were on the "recomended demo list" for speaker manufacture's like Advent, and Cerwin Vega. Not highend stuff and certainly not referance material by current audiophile standards I'm sure. More than anything else I wondered if anyone remembered them.
Matt
I remember :)
Back in those days, I made a decision to buy the Klipcsh Heresy's rather that the Advents. Now, looking back the Advents would have been the better choice. I was into high efficiency and loud rock back then...
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What? no Flim and the BB's?
Matt
Flim and the BB's were among the first jazz artists to release a compact disc. Not reference quality stuff however.
I worked as a salesman for medium-end a/v equiptment in the 80's when cd's were first starting to get mainstream. The big thing in thoes days was a designation on the disk that was ADA, AAD or DDD, which if I remember right was recorded in - mastered in - and the final format as the last letter. Flim and the BB's were among the first to be produced as DDD or direct to digital cd's. Flim and the BB's were on the "recomended demo list" for speaker manufacture's like Advent, and Cerwin Vega. Not highend stuff and certainly not referance material by current audiophile standards I'm sure. More than anything else I wondered if anyone remembered them.
Matt
I remember :)
Back in those days, I made a decision to buy the Klipcsh Heresy's rather that the Advents. Now, looking back the Advents would have been the better choice. I was into high efficiency and loud rock back then...
FWIW my fav's in thoes days were Neil Young "After the Goldrush" (the impurity of his voice is hard to translate on a cheap system), Rodger Waters "Radio KAOS", and Anything Alan Parsons touched. I still use Neil and Rodger when I need a reality check on my system before finalizing a recording that requires a lot of post mastering. Here again I'm no audiophile though, and back in the day my goal was to step someone from a $499 rack system into a couple grand in seperates.
I'll agree with you on the Advent's too. They were nice speakers for a good price, but I always have prefered sealed enclosures. For fun on a slow day we would pull out a couple of bridgable amps and see how long it would take us to pop the slow-blow's on the 15" CV refrigerators... ahhh them's was the days!
Matt
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Bump
Anyone have any discs to add to the list? I've been asking people for reference album recommendations lately...so far I've heard multiple recs for:
Pink Floyd - The Division Bell (I agree on this one...listened to it a bunch)
Steely Dan - Aja
David Gilmour's solo albums (any particular one?)
Thomas Dolby - Aliens Ate My Buick (not my favorite)
Up 'til now, I've always used:
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
Pearl Jam - Ten
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Hands down:
Dave Matthews - Some Devil
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I'd recommend Jack Renner's recording of Stravinsky's , "The Firebird Suite" by The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with Robert Shaw conducting. It's on the Telarc label available on CD and on Hybrid SACD/DSD.
Also recommend seeking out some of the specific discs that made Bob Katz's honor roll.
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Also recommend seeking out some of the specific discs that made Bob Katz's honor roll.
Thanks!
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Freebies for ya:
http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html
My current critical listening files:
Mozart Violin Concertos by Marianne Thorsen and Trondheimsolistene
Love Drum Talk by Babatunde Olatunji
Caminho De Casa by Herbie Mann
Buena Vista Social Club
Tchaikovsky's 1812 by Cincinnati Pops Orchestra
Not Too Late by Norah Jones
The Chesky Critical Listen and Audiophile Test disks are not too shabby for this purpose.
Virtually all of the stuff up on www.dawgnet.com & www.acousticdisc.com is well mastered and would make a fine test disk once you've heard it enough to become critical about.
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Maybe this is a new thread idea...
Are there any generally agreed upon audience (microphone) recordings that people use as reference recordings?
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Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes": very good for testing sibilance. On vinyl it will make the shortcomings of a mediocre cartridge pretty evident and separate the good from the awesome.
Pelican, "Glimmer": good for testing the depth and clarity of the low-end, particularly the bass notes toward the end.
Ry Cooder, 'Paris, Texas' soundtrack: great acoustic and slide album, will give the mids a chance to show what they can do.