What music genres do equipment distortions affect strongest?

[Raindog123]

While some like testing their gear SQ with drum pieces, acoustic guitar passages, double bass, and such I think the hardest to accurately reproduce (and thus most audible) are piano keystrokes, certain female voices, and philharmonic orchestra... What do you think? Is there an established opinion/analysis?

 

[Soniclife]

There is Harman research on what music is best for speaker evaluation, that's focused on frequency response though, do you specifically mean distortion as opposed to frequency response?

 

[Raindog123]

do you specifically mean distortion as opposed to frequency response

I guess I meant both, but concentrating on effects beyond "lacking lows/highs". So, deviation from "ideal" frequency response (eg Harman curve) would qualify... yet it often can be compensated by an equalizer. Meanwhile, distortions - eg harmonic distortions - are harder to deal with.

Long ago, I would go to a listening room with my favorite jazz quartet CD and judge a stereo system by how "lively" it presents drumkit, bass, saxophone... Now I take DCD - to listen how Lisa Gerrard's voice is reproduced... or Chucho Valdes, to check how natural (vs metallic or plasticky) his piano keystrokes sound. I wonder if it makes sense.

 

[Vini darko]

I agree piano will find problems.

 

[Soniclife]

Long ago, I would go to a listening room with my favorite jazz quartet CD and judge a stereo system by how "lively" it presents drumkit, bass, saxophone...

The classic audiophile approach...
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...sic-tracks-for-speaker-and-room-eq-testing.6/
Check the graph in the first post.

Dead can dance are one of my favourite groups.

 

[Gorgonzola]

I think in general if is classical music that is most affected by equipment distortion -- and for that matter, 2nd rate recording and mastering.

One factor is the typically greater dynamic range of classical music, (esp. orchestral). It seems to me the degree of finesse of recording and mastering engineers varies greatly for such instruments as violins and brass; this most affects, IMO, fortissimo passages. Simply put, the art of recording massed string instruments has eluded many of them.

 

[q3cpma]

Pink noise for linear distortion and electronic music (the nearest to pure sines) for nonlinear.