Best Music for Equipment Reviews and Listening Pleasure

[dualazmak]

I have already thanked you on your relevant thread, but would just like to point out how magnificent it is - for anyone here or in search of excellent sampling music. To paraphrase Lawrence Oates: "I'm just going inside and may be some time!"

So much to explore.

An Attempt Sharing Reference Quality Music Playlist: at least a portion and/or whole track being analyzed by 3D color spectrum of Adobe Audition

Tags: 3D sound spectrum, adobe audition, musicscope, reference music, reference playlist, reference tracks, sampler music, sampler playlist, sampler tracks, music playlist, reference quality, reference quality playlist, reference quality music, reference quality tracks, spectrum, gain/time/Fq...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Thank you for your kind attention on my that specific thread sharing "Reference Quality Music Playlist".

Spoiler

[Part-00] Introduction: #587
[Part-01] Full Orchestral Music: #588
[Part-02] Solo Piano Music: #590
[Part-03] Typical(?) Smooth Jazz Music with Guitar: #591
[Part-04] Bimmel Bolle Antique Orgel; Extremely High-Energy High-Frequency Sharp Transient sound: #592
[Part-05] Color Spectrum of Tracks in CBS/Sony's "Super Audio Check CD": #593
[Part-06] Female Vocal in Jazz and Popular Music, and One Male Vocal Track for Comparison: #596
[Part-07] Female Vocal and Counter Tenor in Early Classical Music: #639
[Part-08] (Smooth?) Jazz Trio: #640
[Part-09] Organ Music: #641
[Part-10] Lute Music: #642
[Part-11] Violin Music: #643
[Part-12] Cello Music: #644
[Part-13] Harpsichord (Cembalo, Clavecin) Music: #645
[Part-14] Piano Concertos: #650
[Part-15] Again, CBS/Sony's "Super Audio Check CD": Analyzed by Adobe Audition 3.0.1 and MusicScope 2.1.0: #651
[Part-16] A Cappella Chorus and A Cappella Vocal Ensemble: #652
[Part-17] Excellent Quality Music Tracks, But Containing Unacceptably High Gain Low-Frequency Air Conditioning Noises; What Counter Measures Can We Have? #658
[Part-18] An Interlude or Provisional Finale of the Post Series: #669
and,
Updated, the latest, Audio Sampler Playlist as of October 20, 2022: #670

I would be very happy if the thread and posts thereof would be somewhat worthwhile for many of our ASR friends, and your participation on the thread and on my multichannel project thread (where I shared each of the "Reference Playlist" series posts) will be highly welcome and appreciated!

 

[dualazmak]

My method is to use quality recordings of strings. Cello, Violin and Piano especially. Timbral accuracy is important to me and strings are the most difficult to reproduce accurately.

Just for your possible interest and reference, you would please find on my project thread;
- Excellent Recording Quality Music Albums/Tracks for Subjective (and Possibly Objective) Test/Check/Tuning of Multichannel Multi-Driver Multi-Way Multi-Amplifier Time-Aligned Active Stereo Audio System and Room Acoustics; at least a Portion and/or One Track being Analyzed by Color Spectrum of Adobe Audition in Common Parameters:
[Part-02] Solo Piano Music: #590
[Part-11] Violin Music: #643
[Part-12] Cello Music: #644

And also this post #13 (violin music) on my another thread entitled "Music for Testing Treble (High Frequency) Sound".

 

[Dgob]

This playlist is useful for testing midrange, bass and sub-bass. It also offers other features for equipment testing AND (hopefully) sheer listening pleasure.

Updated! As it is not available to stream elsewhere, the untitled track can be found here :

https://www.discogs.com/release/4803924-Gary-Karr-Adagio-dAlbinoni .

 

[Womaz]

A list of a very eclectic mix of styles.

Wow what a great video . Some i have never heard of and some memories flooding back too. Brilliant

 

[LTig]

My recommendation is to use recordings with many instruments, a wide frequency range and high dynamic. Works for large Symphony orchestra like Mahlers 2nd symphony. Or very dense recordings like The Grudge by Tool. Good systems let you hear more of the individual instruments and make it easier to follow their songlines.

Last 7 minutes, play as loud as possible:

 

[Cbdb2]

Thats why equipment demos use solo voice and guitar and sparse drums. The dense stuff turns to mush on inferior gear. I have always wondered how Fast Car became a standard for testing speakers when it falls into the "easy" category.

 

[LTig]

This crescendo is very impressive. Saw it live recently - just wow.

 

[Dgob]

I just came across this playlist from another reviewer. Many of you might already have seen this, but I found it had some useful new additions:

Sonic Snacks by Stjernholm Reviews

Listen to Sonic Snacks by Stjernholm Reviews on TIDAL

tidal.com

 

[Dgob]

For those who didn't attend the Munich 2023 Hi End Hifi Show, these are some of the tracks used to demonstrate the exhibitors' various wares.

 

[Dgob]

This expanded playlist is largely indebted to Amir. Firstly, it contains music that I could not have hoped to fully appreciate prior to my own equipment purchases, which were largely based on his reviews. It then drew heavily on his former audition playlists. That underpinned my subsequent selection of numerous songs used by other YouTube hifi reviewers. Following that, it expanded to include various songs that are used by manufactures providing equipment demonstrations at most of the High End hifi shows from around the World. Ultimately, it draws on my own and the suggestions from yourselves and various online audiophiles.

I believe that it will both provide endless listening pleasure and a chance to assess all aspects of any hifi system. Again, they're all earmarked by excellent performance, engineering, and mastering. I hope everyone can find something useful in this and gain similar degrees of listening pleasure as I do.

As (if/when) I make significant additions to this auditioning playlist, I will adjust the title of the attached replacement playlist to show the date of the new, latest submission.

 

[mglobe]

Sorry, but I am not certain how else I can share playlists. There are security concerns that limit the ways that items can be shared on the site. If anyone can suggest an alternative method, I would be keen to adopt that.

That means that, if you have another method, please apply that and I will seek to adopt that too, If not, maybe there is a way that you can get excel as a free download.

Save as a .csv file.

 

[Watire]

Intercontinental Ensemble - ARC​

Spotify : Arc Intercontinental Ensemble
Qobuz : Arc Intercontinental Ensemble

A classical chamber music recording of female composer pieces with an astounding level of definition, separation, width, depth and dynamics.

 

[Dgob]

Save as a .csv file.

OK, I've tried to save and attach the latest version as a csv file (using excel to start with). I'm not sure how successful this has been. If it hasn't worked, please let me know.

 

[Dgob]

Intercontinental Ensemble - ARC​

Spotify : Arc Intercontinental Ensemble
Qobuz : Arc Intercontinental Ensemble

A classical chamber music recording of female composer pieces with an astounding level of definition, separation, width, depth and dynamics.

Many thanks Watire. That gives me something new to tune into tonight. Looking forward to it.

 

[Dgob]

Intercontinental Ensemble - ARC​

Spotify : Arc Intercontinental Ensemble
Qobuz : Arc Intercontinental Ensemble

A classical chamber music recording of female composer pieces with an astounding level of definition, separation, width, depth and dynamics.

Beautiful recording. I particularly love the first track, 'Collage van een Achtvlak'. Many thanks again.

 

[ehabheikal]

Another quality take on male vocals (Blues oriented), in case this hits any notes.

can you share the qobuz playlist links?

 

[Dgob]

can you share the qobuz playlist links?

Of course. I think that I was referring to one of these.

 

[Dgob]

I was asked to condense my list to the favourite ones that I feel are most pleasurable and perfect. That ended up with (a mere ) 9 hours of joy! I attach that now in the hope others might appreciate the brevity and focus:

 

[Mikig]

When I have to audition for new devices or speakers, I have favorite tracks, but I intersperse them with songs I don't know. I only use them for confirmation.
By now I have the sensation, listening to the usual songs, from the usual setlist, that I already have in mind what I want to hear or what I think I should hear.
I would call it prejudice.
The tracks that I don't know also allow me to discover different sounds that capture my attention more, finding them more useful for this purpose.

 

[Dgob]

When I have to audition for new devices or speakers, I have favorite tracks, but I intersperse them with songs I don't know. I only use them for confirmation.
By now I have the sensation, listening to the usual songs, from the usual setlist, that I already have in mind what I want to hear or what I think I should hear.
I would call it prejudice.
The tracks that I don't know also allow me to discover different sounds that capture my attention more, finding them more useful for this purpose.

Hi Mikig,

I would obviously 'strongly' recommend a greater familiarisation and focus on particular tracks and aspects on these in order to conduct critical listening/auditions. I believe that this approach is most frequently adopted because it increases the potential objectivity of such subjective reviews and, thereby, increases the likelihood of correct assessments and decisions.