[wilsonij]

As part of the Cubed Amps thread a few of us have started to share favourite tracks for the purposes of auditioning equipment and/or what you would choose to play FIRST on new kit, so I thought it worthy of a whole new thread as I'm sure everyone will have lots of ideas...

If you can, please say WHY you recommend a particular track... or tracks, the more the merrier !

Thanks

Ian

[CanadianMaestro]

Mahler Symph 3 Bernstein/NY Phil.  Has everything -- basses, voices, trumpets, fast, slow. It's LONG so be patient.
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/DG/E4273282#download

Wellington's Victory (Beethoven). Marriner/ASMF. Cannons, horses, carriages, crows, brass. Battlefield piece, basically. Better than the 1812 Overture, imo. A real treat for your ears, and a true test of speaker positioning, amp dynamics and resolution.
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Philips/4262392#download

[CanadianMaestro]

Sneakin' Out: Train Wreck.  Acoustics instrumental. Tests spatiality and clarity.
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sneakinout

[Armaegis]

A new oddball favourite... Flight of the Cosmic Hippo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iYgf6PWYK8
Fantastic bassy recording that isn't all wubwub electronica.

[jimdgoulding]

For realism . .

Swedish Marten Speaker CD sampler given to me by a friend. Various cuts.

Anything from the Mapleshade CD catalog.

Anything from Mark Levinson.  I have two on vinyl.

Anything from Scandanavian labels BIS, Proprius, Finnadar, Opus 3.  Also vinyl, tho I expect CD's are available.

[schmidtmike76]

Tool intension from 10,000 days. Mastered incredibly for the genre of hard rock metal but all of tools albums are mastered and recorded to audiophile standards.  There are a couple of moments where there is a bass drop that's is fast and tight and lots of melody through out the song.  The Intro is recorded backwards where only tool could pull it off.  Listen to mother your father is right go to school...There is also three songs YouTube "tool hidden song 10000 days" and it takes 3 different songs and if they are layered over top of each other they become 1 song.  Only tool could pull that trick.  It may be metal but it has emotion and a story behind every song.

Metallica master of puppets no introduction necessary

[wilsonij]

As OP, I guess I should add a few of my own !

• the opening two tracks of Elfman's "Mission Impossible" soundtrack... "Sleeping Beauty" has all sorts of weird percussive sounds which really test timbre and location in space whereas the "MI Theme" is such energy and "swing" lesser components really struggle to keep up
• "Son of Tut" by Dr.Didj... lots of kit struggle with these bass-heavy rhythmic patterns and, like many woodwind instruments, the didg is surprisingly difficult for digital players to get right
• "Love You to Death" by Type O Negative... this is really poorly recorded and yet has such potential, so is a great test of how every component needs to work together otherwise it comes across as "mush"
• "Sixth Sense" by the United Future Organisation... spoken vocals, dripping water, door creaks... many acoustic engineers will tell you that the best test of the "realism" of a system is to listen to sounds that are *really* familiar
• "Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes" by Paul Simon... recreating vocal harmonies well is HARD, throw in complex syncopated rhythms and lesser systems struggle to convey anything approaching coherence
• the "James Bond Theme" by Moby... one of my absolute favourite "high energy" tracks - crank up the volume and see if you can FEEL the impact of the music

Ian

[wilsonij]

Tool intension from 10,000 days

Big fan of Tool - like to use the opening of "Intolerance" off "Undertow" to get a sense of how wide the sound stage goes...

..but I don't know that album; will check it out !

Metallica master of puppets no introduction necessary

Anything particular and why ? I love Battery but have a soft spot for when the guitars kick in on Orion...

Ian

[schmidtmike76]

Cliffs bass on the opening lines its there.  it's hidden but on a good system you can pick him out.  Then after the melody part when it gets heavy again...the best way to describe it as "thick" I love that part when you go back and listen I say everytime man that's solid. 

[wilsonij]

Under the circumstances it seems appropriate to listen to lots of PRINCE; his variety and attention to sound quality certainly gives audio systems a good work out !

There are lots of possibilities, but this is an interesting selection - http://www.ew.com/article/2016/04/21/25-essential-prince-tracks - and the run of Corvette / Beret / Doves / Crazy / Rain / Kiss really made the 7B3's work hard, but at no point did they struggle to keep on top of the material (despite some fiendish syncopation), and I was positively floored by the impact and intensity these mono blocks conveyed playing one of my favourites "Sign o' the Times".

Ian