New Speakers/Best Recordings to Evaluate

[Wirrunna]

I have a pair of Klipschorns in a large well damped living room and very occasionally someone will realise that what they thought were corner cupboards are in fact speakers. To demo them I play Buddy Guy - Blues Singer and then to show how loud they can go I crank up Boney M's Rasputin.

For interest, there is a thread on the Klipsch forums https://community.klipsch.com/index....ting-speakers/

[emalvick]

I think it would be best to work with recordings that have been remastered AND are not victims of the loudness wars where music is pushed to the max.

This is where vinyl can be nice. A variety is nice. I have some nice recordings in 24-96 format that I like to use just because they aren't highly compressed and tend to have more dynamics.

I appreciate the earlier suggestion about live music and listening to voices. I never thought of that myself.

I do like judging my equipment via some old 50's and 60's era jazz albums, some which are live, as you can pick up a lot of detail in those recordings.

[Pascal Hibon]

One missunderstood recommendation is to use some live recordings.
In this case live should be understood as well made acoustical recordings ie " non loudspeaker music ".
Sounds you may have heard in reality without the help of speaker technology.

I would be very careful with such statements.
I've listed a couple of live performances in my response above. I use those because they are very well recorded. I never heard those particular songs live myself but I know how the CD sounds. So, I'm not "comparing them" to the actual live performance.
To me it is all about the recording quality. And in that regards, I would never exclude live performances (if they are well recorded).

On another note, some people are referring to good recordings when they aren't dynamically compressed (too much).
To me that is only one aspect of "the well recorded" album or track. In my opinion there are other parameters to take into account before I stick my "good recorded label" on a CD or track. How the recording as been mixed, how the different vocals and instruments have been EQ'ed, etc. In a previous life I've mixed quite some PA sessions and that's probably why I'm looking for those things as well.

[bakker_be]

Over the years I have compiled a small list with music that I use to evaluate speakers (and other gear).
To me it is key to know the songs very well (how do they sound) and that the reference music is well recorded.
The name of the album is between brackets at the end. I understand that your taste might not be the same as mine, but the albums listed are worth a listen since most of them are very well recorded.
Below are a few songs I use (in no particular order):

Ibhola Lethu (Our Football Team) - Johnny Clegg & Savuka (In My African Dream)
Janie Runaway - Steely Dan (Two Against Nature)
Roots (Back to a Way of Live) – Incognito (100° and Rising)
Need to Know – Incognito (Tribes, Vibes and Scribes)
Rock Me Baby - Tina Turner (What's Love Got To Do With It)
Steamy Windows - Tina Turner (Simply The Best)
Looking For Clues - Robert Palmer (The Very Best Of Robert Palmer)
Mustang Sally - The Commitments (The Commitments)
Wag The Dog - Mark Knopfler (Wag The Dog)
Smoking Gun - Robert Cray (Strong Persuader)
Bayou Woman - Tony Joe White (Lake Placid Blues)
I'm On My Way - The Proclaimers (The Best Of... (87-02))
Aniron - Enya (The Very Best Of Enya)
Earthchild – Tocadisco (Dance)
Sax-A-Go-Go - Candy Dulfer (Live In Amsterdam)
Flesh For Fantasy - Billy Idol (Idol Songs - 11 Of The Best)
Autocensor - Blue Blot (Shopping For Love)
Is It Real - Count Basic (Life Think It Over)
Somebody Up There Likes You - Simple Minds (New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84))
Le Monde Tourne Mal (Live) - Axelle Red (Alive)

This one is not particularly well recorded (dynamically compressed) but I love the baseline in it.
I also like Marianne’s voice signature.

Lola R. For Ever - Marianne Faithfull With Sly & Robbie (Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited)


Am I reading it right that you already bought the speakers?

You should maybe add Luc Van Acker & Anna Domino - Zanna to that list. It's wonderfully multilayered with some astounding deep bass as well ...

[Pascal Hibon]

You should maybe add Luc Van Acker & Anna Domino - Zanna to that list. It's wonderfully multilayered with some astounding deep bass as well ...

Thanks for the tip bakker_be! I've added Zanna to my reference list.
Have you heard the version Sweet Coffee made of that song? It's on the their Naked City album.
Sweet Coffee is a highly underrated band in my opinion.

[iPhone]

If I want to see how a Speaker System performs over a varying range of music, styles, instruments, and voice, I carry the following:

I always start with the Stereophile Test CD Volume 2 because if channel identification and channel phasing are not correct, one is wasting their time. A guy was in HiFi Buys a couple months ago and they had been switching sources and pre-amps around and then the guy started to listen in earnest for about 25 minutes and said he was impressed. It sounded flat and muddled to me with absolutely NO Sound Stage. Put the Test CD in when he was finished and the channels were reversed at the pre-amp and the phase was wrong.

Erich Kunzel:Cincinnati Pops/Time Warp (wide dynamic range plus some 18Hz organ notes, if there is a long silence that seems out of place, the speakers don't have a good bass foundation)

Spies/Music of Espionage

Flim & The BB's/Tricycle (modern Jazz)

Miles Davis/Kind of Blue/ All Blue (Davis, Evans, Coltrane, need I say more)

Keb' Mo'/Just Like You

Amanda McBroom & Lincoln Mayorga/Growing Up in a Hollywood Town/ Amanda (female vocal)

Nylons/Seamless/ The Lion Sleeps Tonight/ Up on the Roof

Checkfield/Distant Thunder/ Clockwork

Dire Straits/Brothers in Arms/ Brothers in Arms

Billy Joel/The Bridge/ Baby Grand

Stevie Ray Vaughan/Couldn't Stand the Weather (Remastered)/ Hide Away/ Couldn't Stand the Weather

Coldplay/A Rush of Blood to the Head/ Clocks

[Pascal Hibon]

Flim & The BB's/Tricycle (modern Jazz)

Looked this one up on the net and it seems like a great album. As far as I can tell from youtube it seems very well recorded.
I tried to buy but it doesn't seem to be very popular in Europe... A few places where it is available at very ridiculous prices. Even at Amazon it is listed at 40 Euro but can't be shipped to my address.
Do you know by any chance where I could buy this on CD or download?

Thanks for the tip by the way.
You're list also made me buy Keb' Mo' - Just Like You

[iPhone]

Looked this one up on the net and it seems like a great album. As far as I can tell from youtube it seems very well recorded.
I tried to buy but it doesn't seem to be very popular in Europe... A few places where it is available at very ridiculous prices. Even at Amazon it is listed at 40 Euro but can't be shipped to my address.
Do you know by any chance where I could buy this on CD or download?

Thanks for the tip by the way.
You're list also made me buy Keb' Mo' - Just Like You

Glad you enjoyed Flim & the BB's Tricycle. Also check out their CD Big Notes. Tricycle and Big Notes are my two favorites from them but I do enjoy listening to all their CDs and songs. All their CDs where either DD digital Direct to Disk or DDD CDs so they are all clean and sound great. Tricycle was the very first CD release that was not a Classical recording. I believe all of the Flim and the BB's discography is Out of Print. So any NEW CD is going to be one that a company or person put aside so it will be costly. I also don't know anywhere that has digital downloads of their CDs. I would look for a "stated" clean like new used copy. Amazon here in the US shows a copy for $14.99. There are several used CD stores here in Atlanta and they might have a copy.

I have asked on several Forums what CD is peoples' favorite to listen to when listening to high end speakers and have generated some replies finding some new music. I probably need to find a Forum or website that actually deals with Music to find new music via opinion and suggestion. The radio is no help whatsoever as the current new music is not even music in my opinion.

[Pascal Hibon]

Glad you enjoyed Flim & the BB's Tricycle. Also check out their CD Big Notes. Tricycle and Big Notes are my two favorites from them but I do enjoy listening to all their CDs and songs. All their CDs where either DD digital Direct to Disk or DDD CDs so they are all clean and sound great. Tricycle was the very first CD release that was not a Classical recording. I believe all of the Flim and the BB's discography is Out of Print. So any NEW CD is going to be one that a company or person put aside so it will be costly. I also don't know anywhere that has digital downloads of their CDs. I would look for a "stated" clean like new used copy. Amazon here in the US shows a copy for $14.99. There are several used CD stores here in Atlanta and they might have a copy.

I have asked on several Forums what CD is peoples' favorite to listen to when listening to high end speakers and have generated some replies finding some new music. I probably need to find a Forum or website that actually deals with Music to find new music via opinion and suggestion. The radio is no help whatsoever as the current new music is not even music in my opinion.

I tried to reply to your PM message but it seems that your inbox is full.

[iPhone]

That is odd, my PM shows a green bar at the end which I thought meant I still had room to work with. I know my Sent to Received are not balanced, maybe I exceeded number of received. I'll go delete some Sent and Inbox messages to to make sure there is space. Please try sending it again.

Keith

I tried to reply to your PM message but it seems that your inbox is full.