Tracks for hi-fi setup testing

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What are some good tracks to test different setups? Obviously it mainly depends on the type of music i listen to but there must be a good rock/metal track, one good classical, one hip hop and one hard dance to test systems.

Would be good to create a testing cd to listen to different setups. I mainly listen to dance, dubstep and hiphop but also like metal, classical and everything else!
 
There have been other threads on this, and I remember one of the first suggestions being Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing.

For pop, try something like Michael Jackson - Billie Jean.
 
whichever you choose, make sure you are familiar with them to make comparisons easier, as you said try and take different types of music to get a good feel, you could add jazz to that also ;)
 
lunarwolf said:
whichever you choose, make sure you are familiar with them to make comparisons easier
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Best suggestion so far.

Go with music you know and love so you can make a proper comparison. Take some well recorded music to show off how good the kit is and also some take some music you love that is not that well recorded. Some hifi can make bad recordings un-listenable by making highlighting all the flaws in the recording while others can be more flattering towards poor recordings. Also take a wide range of music, something that makes classical sound great might not work at all with dance or rock.

I would just take original CD's rather than ones I had burnt myself from mp3's as the quality will be better.

My usual demo tracks are:
Everything but the Girl, Mirror Ball
Gomez, Make no sound
Doves, The man who told everything
London Elektricity, Hanging Rock
Plus any recent CD's that I have bought that I like.

Dire Straits, Sultans of Swing is a good test disc, very nicely recorded and its an HDCD

Dave
 
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alexhull24 said:
There have been other threads on this, and I remember one of the first suggestions being Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing.

For pop, try something like Michael Jackson - Billie Jean.
Click to expand...

Even if you dont like Michael, Billie Jean is a great hifi test track, its bass beat is quite a challenge for speakers and amps to reproduce faithfully.
 
I've always taken a stack of my absolute favourite CD's for sound tests. I listen almost entirely to guitar bands so I take a range everything from ACDC back in black to Nirvana unplugged.
 
Anything produced by Mike Hedges is good. He's widely regarded as being the closest to a modern equivalent of Phil Spector's 'Wall of Sound' production. Examples of his work include:

White on Blonde - Texas
The Sound of McAlmont and Butler - McAlmont and Butler (Yes being the Stand-out-a-Mile track)
Everything Must Go - Manics

Being a fan of the latter I'd naturally recommend that. The production on many of the tracks on that album is epic, especially:

Design for Life
Everything Must Go
The Girl That Wanted To Be God
Interiors (Sony for Willem De Kooning)
 
Liking your suggestions JonnyT, going to dig those out now. Also Metallica the black album..(sad but true for crushing heaviness).
 
Dont forget some female singers, people like Tracy Chapman and Suzanne Vega can show how well a hifi can produce midrange tones. You dont really have to "like" the music, to appreciate how its good for a listening test (though its better if you arnt totally turned off by the tunes!).
 
Hi all

I suggest you include Con Amore by Kyung-Wha Chung, Phillip Moll.

Great violin/piano playing and recording.

If it makes you wince not good unless you like wincing or really dislike the music (how could you).
 
Corasik said:
You dont really have to "like" the music, to appreciate how its good for a listening test (though its better if you arnt totally turned off by the tunes!).
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True. I'm loving some of the dire straits tracks, even if i dont really like the music they sound great!

I've already heard a few of the tracks on the sultans of swing cd. Think my favourite is 'Walk of Life'

Fedex nobs best hurry up and delivery my new nad amp to my work before i finish today
 
I have just been reading an article about amplifiers... what tracks can be used to show flaws in cheap quality amplifiers compaired to more expensive ones? Oh, my NAD amp did arrive and it sounds great

A lot of what makes high-end monster amps powerful and expensive is the extra balls required to drive a difficult loudspeaker load—one of very low impedance, perhaps in combination with a large phase angle—at frequencies where music has a lot of energy. Such loads require extra power to keep the amplifier from distorting and to keep the character of the sound from changing. In traditional designs, that extra power is used only when the load would stress a lesser amp—when the amplifier isn't working hard, all that extra power is wasted. "So at 8 ohms, all these big parts that you paid extra for" in that monster amplifier you just bought "are just loafing along," wrote Stidsen in an e-mail.

http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/1006nad/index3.html
 
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