Good test tracks

[crankedup]

Rummaging through my CD collection for tracks that I would consider not only great music but good for auditioning of new gear.
I have found Red Hot Chili Peppers 'The adventures of rain dance maggie' fills my bill perfectly. Interested in what tracks you consider to set a challenge for auditioning.

[Papa Hotel]

Higher State of Consciousness. That'll give any set of speakers a good workout.

[crankedup]

Papa Hotel said:

Higher State of Consciousness. That'll give any set of speakers a good workout.

New to me and so Utube'd it. Agree it would make the speakers earn a living!! Not my sort of music TBH but a great vid'.

[Papa Hotel]

crankedup said:

New to me and so Utube'd it. Agree it would make the speakers earn a living!! Not my sort of music TBH but a great vid'.

It's not something you want on your alarm clock.

[Himself]

Massive Attack - Angel for testing the bottom end, something from Melody Gardot for vocals and Donald Fagen - Weather in my head for checking out the timing.

[rich85uk]

Emili sande - heaven
Swedish house mafia - one (vocal mix)

not to everybodys taste but lots of different sounds etc

[Frances The Mute]

So many tunes, so little time. But off the top of my head...

Ben Harper - Whipping Boy
Bjork - All is Full of Love
Tori Amos - Cruel
PJ Harvey - Down by the Water
Jeff Buckley - Lover, You Should've Come Over.
Supercollider - It Won't Be Long

[StuH]

Light My Fire [Kenny Dope Remix) from the Shirley Bassey remix album. Always the first track I use - the percussive dynamics from around 2m 10sec will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in a good system.

Slighly dodgy vid to give a flavour http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c5D0aRiJjk

Edited by StuH on Thursday 22 November 00:27

[Le TVR]

Barenboim / Chicago Symphony Orchestra Tchaikovsky's 4th, last movement.
Preferably the vinyl from Decca.

[Mark.]

The track that sold us on our current Hi-Fi was Dog Days by Florence and the Machine. I use that as a test comparison now. But it'd be cool to have a whole disk of stuff.

Some here mentioned a while back they had a whole load of stuff saved as flac?

[MocMocaMoc]

Secret Machines - Here Now is Nowhere.

26* bass drum just thunders along, with the appropriate guitars over the top. Sounds gorgeous on a good system.

[DavidY]

Rickie Lee Jones - Easy Money

[900T-R]

Play as much different music as you can, and none you don't really enjoy but play for the sake of 'testing'.

Many people make decisions based on single 'reference' tracks and their idea of what it should sound like. Which might or might not have any bearing on what's actually on the disc (even the recording engineers don't know as they work with the limitiations and ideosyncrasies of their own monitoring equipment and room acoustics. Nothing is ever perfect).

A not-so-good system will tend to homogenise the sound of everything you play through it. Either because it takes away a lot of the aspects that make a recording unique, or by imposing it's own sonic signature on the music (which may sound impressive with some tracks and annoy the hell out of you with different music).

The better system is invariably the one that discriminates between the sound characteristics of different recordings the most.

[jdw1234]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZThquH5t0ow

[jontysafe]

Roger Waters Radio Kaos.

[Howard-]

Elbow - Grounds For Divorce

[KaraK]

Himself said:

Massive Attack - Angel for testing the bottom end

Howard- said:

Elbow - Grounds For Divorce

Use these two myself

Others I use:

• Jewel - Down So Long
• Ed Sheeran - Lego House
• The Prodigy - Voodoo People (Pendulum Remix)

[Zod]

Howard- said:

Elbow - Grounds For Divorce

Yes. That bass parp sounds like a fart on any but the best speakers.

[Zod]

I still find Love is the Drug to be a great test track, twenty-six years after I used it to audition my first system in my first week at Cambridge at University Audio.

[otolith]

For vocals Cowboy Junkies - Mining For Gold.