Hi-Fi test cds/sacds

what poor taste you all have

Favourite tracks for checking out a hifi -

Prelude from Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Chailly/Berlin RSO - very delicate shimmering texture from double basses, tubas all the way up to piccolos, needs lots of resolution to hear all the strands.

Brahms Tragic overture - Abbado/BPO - weight, pace, power, slam

Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances first movement, Ashkenazy/Concertgebouw - as above + colour and texture contrast.

Beethoven Rasumovsky Quartet no1, Italian Quartet - imaging and delineation of different string tone

Shostakovich Quartet no 6 Fitzwilliam Qt - as above

Bach Goldberg variations first few variations, Angela Hewitt

Schubert Sonata D.959, Murray Perahia or Radu Lupu - both of the above to test piano tone and weight, speed of bass - essential for proper enjoyment of solo piano music.

Malcolm Arnold Guitar Concerto, Bream, Rattle, CBSO

Gratiana Dances - English song by someone I can't remember but Ian Bostridge does it very nicely.

Bruckner Symphony 7, Haitink Concertgebouw - if in the first movement coda you can hear a dark cloud passing over the sun before it emerges triumphant spreading radiance over the world then the hifi is doing a good job.

 

My favourite tracks/discs for testing hifi kit are some of the following.

Nightstalker and Floating Museum from the Ghost In The Shell (OST) - Kenji Kawai, excellent haunting music with lots of little details to listen for.

Midnight in a Perfect World from Endtroducing - DJ Shadow, a classic hip-hop track.

Wave Twisters - DJ QBert, good test of bass and lots of little details in the samples and scratches.

Ocean's Eleven (OST) - Various, a great mix of musical styles from classical to hip-hop and HDCD encoded.

The Cat - Jimmy Smith, groovy hammond organ jazz.

Who Cares A Lot? The Greatest Hits - Faith No More, good example of HDCD encoding. Plus has one of my favourite tracks, Midlife Crisis, and a great version of Easy.

Fast Rap - Edan the DJ, great mix of old school hip-hop and a good test of bass.

Going Under (K&D Remix) - Rocker's Hi Fi

Trans Fatty Acid (K&D Remix) - Lamb

Like a lot of people I use discs/tracks I'm familiar with. I have played around with commercial test discs such as the Sheffield XLO Test & Burn-In CD and the Sheffield Labs Drum & Tracks Disc, but I prefer to use music I'm actually going to play on the system .

 

I'm with Alan on this one

I always use a CD of Haydn quartets I've got played by the Lindsays
Mahler 2 performed by the CBSO and Simon Rattle
James Brown live at the Apollo
Shostokovitch Leningrad symphony, the brilliant classics one. Barshai with the WDO
Soundtrack to Gladiator
An LP of Michael Rabin playing the Wienawski violin concerto no 2
Martin Stephenson and the Daintees Gladsome humour and blue
Ian Dury and the Blockheads New boots and panties
Ryan Adams Gold
Lemonjelly KY

 

Another one:

Mirwais, Production (the whole album). Just listened to it, awesome! Will certainly show if your system has any of WM's beloved "thwack" . Hadn't listened to this CD for ages and am glad to have rediscovered it. Mirwais produced Madonna's "American Life" and you can certainly hear some of that album in this one. Madonna also does vocals on track 7, a very beautiful, haunting little song.

Michael.

 

Test Cd's, Ipersonally I take music along, as thats what I listen too, the only exception is my IASCA disc, it has a couple of phase and imaging tracks I use for basic set up, also a dynamic/serperation track with over 20 or so close miked instrements.
BB King 3 o'clock blues, some of the tightest deepest coherent bass (electric) your' ll hear, not fast or funky, just good ol' solid rythymic underpinning, a basic test, yet one that an awful lot of systems fail dismaly
Gary Moore The hurt inside, male vocals are bitch to get right, females are easy to slot in, Moore's voice rougher than a 80 grit badger arse paper is great for sorting out the merely average from the good
Whitesnake Starkers in Toyko Soldier of Fortune, just an acoustic guitar and vocals, all the neuonces and breaths back ground audience, black bround test and detail pick up.
Alayna Miles Black Velvet on orginal 89 CD for the rich textures and wide range of the female vocals.
Propheads OHMSS one of the best tracks for musical cohesion and bass control I know of.
Oasis whats the story, its so badly recorded its a case of, the less naff it doesn't sound that wins my vote
Natilia Imbruglia Big mistake, so much going on in this song, only well constructed systems can piece it together.
Crowded house weather with you, the 2 acoutsic guitars and the Finn brothers singing in harmony, again looking for cohesion and fuildity with seperation plus the natural grove of the track.
Last 2 are dynamic range and agility tests. Eric Johnson Zapp & Purple Flight of the rat if you can count 2 you doing well speed and cohesion thing here.
I have more but it depends on the system and components that are being demo'd

 

I believe it was me who introduced you to that track

Michael.

 

Great choice - and I'd add "bass extension" for those bass drum thwacks too. The Ravel Piano Concerti (Zimerman / Boulez), Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez (Bonnell / Dutoit) and Szymanowski 3rd Symphony (Rattle) are also favourite test tracks of mine along with the Rachmaninov (Ashkenazy's The Bells is good for shaking out the old woofers too )

 

Hi,

With reference to those HiFi tuning and testing CDs, where can I get my hands on them?

 

Lamb Chop's Is A Woman Album.

If all you hear is piano and a voice you have a crap system!

 

You could try Audiophile Candy or look in the back pages of any of the mainstream hifi magazines.