Universal CD for REVIEW purposes

What do think if we concluded on a CD to use for our evaluation of new equipment.If we used the same CD it would enable us all to provide educated comments on what we hear in our systems and compare to what someone else hears.
ANY SUGGESTIONS
rollo

 

My suggestion is this will never work.

Even amongst a small group of people musical tastes and preference for presentation mean different people are looking for totally different things.

For example, I'm sure Tones has any number of classical CDs that he would use for such purposes (if he chose! He's not one for listening to equipment so much), whereas I would probably not choose a classical recording on which to base such judgements of my system (or any other) because that is not my normal listening fare.

Making a composite CD of different tracks for different people also does not work because you'll only listen to the ones you like.

 

A CD to use instead of X on a scale of 1 to 10 ...

Hi Rollo,

Well this is a tough one. I made up a CD with 18 or 19 tracks, various female singers singing what I consider to be their best performances, everyone from Britney to Jewel, Carstenson, Cassidy, Hill, Merchant, McLachlen, to Kreviazuk :MILD: Works for me. Or it usually does, the 19 track version is 80:29 which won't play in some players ( Levinson ) :JOEL:

Someone else (Or I) might insist on bringing a 70 lb. 2 Track Reel to Reel Studer/Ampex/Technics/Akai Deck along with some old 1960's acetate reel tapes (early Command ping-pong Stereo, or the Audio Fidelity Railroad Sounds, or RCA - Van Cliburn recordings, or actual Master Tapes) as a "closer to the performance" true standard to evaluate a system.

Well, short of hiring out the whole N.Y. Phil... as a reference, one simply can choose just a small sample of what one likes to hear as a reference, and certainly everyone has their own opinions on that. So yup, tough one.


Steven L. Bender

 

CD for review purposes

I personally use just 2 tracks for evaluation:-
PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS(about 6 mins)- Dire Straits
JOAN OF ARC(about 8 mins)- Jennifer Warnes
Each has a wide dynamic range, and the former has some really testing elements to it(acoustic guitar, piano, loud drum slams etc etc.). The latter has the (always testing for CD) female vocal, and Jennifer has an exquisite voice. It also has a wonderful passage where her own voice is used as a backing voice in a different key - wonderful stuff!

 

Didn't know Britney had a best track. Do tell

Rod

 

GREAT Idea - let's all get

Joni Mitchell Blue on DCC
Ringo-Ringo on DCC
The Wall on Mofi
Abbey Road (black triangle) Japanese
Canadian Rubber Soul

then report back when you have all of them!

 

I just got a genuine involuntary shudder at the thought of it.

Some people might like the first three tracks to be diana krall, michael buble and michael ball.

I might quite like to be sick all over the floor.

 

what a revolting though