Your SQ testing songs?

[STEvil]

Here's what i've been using recently. Yeah, they not all "SQ" songs but to me a good some should evoke an emotional response as well as the "quality" of the sound. Enjoying my new Harman Kardon receiver anyways :p

Ayreon - Cold Metal
Black Label Society - Rust
Black Label Society - Fear
Black Label Society - Stepping Stone
Black Sabbath - Scarlet Pimpernel
Cocteau Twins - Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires
Danzig - Come to Silver
Danzig - Five Finger Crawl
Depeche Mode - Dream on (Dave Clarke Acoustic)
Dream Theater - The Root of all Evil
Epica - Run for a Fall (Single Version)
KMFDM - Mercy
Led Zeppelin - When the Levee Breaks
Led Zeppelin - No Quarter
Metallica - The House Jack Built
Puscifer - The Humbling River
The Crystal Method - I Know its You
The Smashing Pumpkins - Shame
The Tragically Hip - Put it Off

[SabreWulf69]

Sorry about the lack of alphabetical sorting but here goes, my reference of essential SQ songs -

Dolores O'Riordan - Apple of My Eye
Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing
Alison Krauss - Stay
Corrine May - Fly Away
Eva Cassidy - Fields of Gold
Mike Oldfield - Portsmouth
Lydia Gray - Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
Norah Jones - Back To Manhatten
Rebecca Pidgeon - Spanish Harlem
Allan Taylor - Colour To The Moon
Steve Strauss - Flesh and Blood
Steve Strauss - Mr. Bones
Chris Jones - Long After You're Gone
The Eagles - Hotel California (Live)
Paul Stephenson - If You Want My Love
Steve Strauss - The Puppet Opera
Livingston Taylor - Isn't She Lovely
Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - The Girl From Ipanema
Beck - The Golden Age
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cotton Fields
George Michael - John and Elvis Are Dead
The XX - Islands
Chrisy Baron - Ain't No Sunshine
The Alan Parsons Project - Time
Juno Reactor - Pistolero (Picture of Man Remix)
Hybrid - The Formula of Fear (Hybrid Remix) (Hybrid feat. Charlotte James)
Leonard Cohen - The Future
Apocalyptica - Nothing Else Matters
Massive Attack - Angel
Dire Straits - Tunnel of Love
Michael Hedges - Jitterboogie
Kansas - Dust in the Wind
Steely Dan - Hey Nineteen
The Police - Roxanne
U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
The Who - The Punk Meets The Godfather
Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Lucky Man
Pink Floyd - Grantchester Meadows
Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Cat Stevens - Wild World
Supertramp - The Logical Song
Flim & The BB's - Funhouse
Johann Pachelbel - Canon in D
Beethoven - Adagio Cantabile from Sonata Op.13 (Pathetique)
Rick Wakeman - Sir Gallahad
Gentle Giant - In A Glass House
Porcupine Tree - Radioactive Toy
Primus - Mrs. Blaileen


A play through of these audiophile quality tracks will show a lot of weaknesses where applicable in relation to quality for many different audio systems.

[IFMU]

don't really have a system worth testing, or have in the past so haven't really checked into any.
i did have a decent stereo system in my ride in the past and found some 'songs' that just put out a tone and it goes through at least a small range.
nice to see other peoples lists so if by some mistake in the space/time continuum i am able to get a decent lil sound system i can take a look at what other people use and give it a shot.

[IFMU]

received a request to sticky and think this could be a useful thread to folk so consider it stuck. ^_^

[Hondacity]

Limp Bizkit - Gold Cobra, Released 2011 - my comment: audio bliss

[-=DouglasteR=-]

Music with lots of high's and mid's (progressive rock) are always great to test the system !

Gary numan - Cars
Rush - YYZ
Dire Straits Money for nothing

[nn_step]

Warzone 2100 theme song:

/warzone2100-2.3.8/data/music/track2.ogg

you can download it and the entire game here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/warz...ar.gz/download


(Since it is all under the GPL now and those that want it for windows and the video sequences: http://www.wz2100.net/download)

[Mescalamba]

Apocalyptica - Reflections

Quite a lot of very good songs, pretty high quality CD.

Nightwish, pretty much everything with Tarja. Good for vocals.

[SabreWulf69]

Relating to game soundtracks, the Dead Space 2 Soundtrack was made in part with help from THX, so it's not too bad in the quality respect if you can get to listen to it. There is also stuff like general classical music, jazz, and movie soundtracks, say the likes of the 300 Soundtrack (one of my personal favourites), the Gladiator soundtrack, the Lord of the Rings soundtracks, The Star Wars soundtracks, amongst I am sure many others.

[PanteraGSTK]

Tool - Reflections is a very good song for sound testing.
Anything with good dynamics will test a speaker system. I like to use heavy metal if possible. Pink floyd is always good.

[SabreWulf69]

Got my hands on the Focal JMlab's 7 & 8 test discs. Pretty neat, and they even have a few mainstream tracks like Godsmack's Straight out of Line, Put Your Hands Up For Detroit by Fede Le Grand, Love is Gone by David Guetta and Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple :-) I also believe Focal's were chosen as part of one of the showrooms for DTS.

[crackhead2k]

Err... Classical Music... especially ones with a good conductor.
Beethoven symphony no 9 i think
Piano Solos
err... The reason for a orchestra is for instrument separation it a good test.
solos for details. Reference should be a pair of high end headphones as it is cheaper for high fi.
I prefer to listen on my towers.

[crackhead2k]

oops double post

[SabreWulf69]

Heehee got myself a copy of Toto's IV album on 12" LP, also got a copy of Dire Straits self-titled album and Supertramp's Breakfast in America album on vinyl also coming in soon. Should be some good quality yet enjoyable listening :-) Classical and jazz is also good for testing imaging and spectral balance too :-)

Another song that has been well recorded that I have been listening to quite a lot lately is Anesthetize by Porcupine Tree. Excellent track.

[Donnie27]

Dire Straits - Money For Nothing
Kansas - Dust in the Wind
Steely Dan - Hey Nineteen
The Police - Every Breath You Take/Sting
Hotel California
Pink Floyd - Time & Money
The Carpenters - Superstar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJmma...feature=fvwrel
Mother's Finest - Burning Love
Patsy Cline - I Fall To Pieces (Original Stereo) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcWZV...eature=related
Elton John - Blessed, Nikita, and Rocket Man from the SACD or 24bit/96KHz DVD-A
Fun Lovin' Criminals - Everything Under The Stars
The whole "Heavy Metal #1 Sound Track" http://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Metal-So...6675532&sr=8-2
Alan Parsons - The Gold Bug
Alan Parsons - 24bit/96KHz "I Robot" and "I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You"
Bread - Most of the Recordings although not that crazy about the music.
The Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
Paula Cole - Feelin' love
Sarah McLachlan -Angel

[Bobsama]

Amilia K. Spicer -- Like an Engine
Bad Company -- Bad Company
The Civil Wars -- Poison & Wine
Dire Straits -- Communique
Cowboy Junkies -- The Trinity Session
John Gorka -- Writing in the Margins
King Crimson -- Starless & Bible Black
Lissie -- Why You Runnin'
Mark Knopfler -- Shargri-La
Mark Knopfler -- Get Lucky
Pink Floyd -- Dark Side of the Moon (MFSL)
Pink Floyd -- Wish You Were Here (CBS Japan)

[Donnie27]

Tubular Bells Part 3 -- Mike Oldfield 24bit/96kHz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaygI...eature=related
Piano In The Dark -- Brenda Russell

[SabreWulf69]

Sigur Ro's - Fjogur piano
The entire 'Silence' album by Monolake
Toto - I Will Remember
Enigma - Return to Innocence (Long & Alive Version)
The entire 'Three LP's' album by Shackleton

[IamAnoobieCheez]

Great thread. Could someone kindly zip all that songs (songs that you have) and put it out on the web for download? I would appreciate it a ton.


cheez

[jason str]

A fresh pressing of the Beatles white album ( album as in vinyl record ) is always a winner imo. Any decent record should be favored over other options as it holds more sound (information) than CD,s mp3,s etc.

[STEvil]

A fresh pressing of the Beatles white album ( album as in vinyl record ) is always a winner imo. Any decent record should be favored over other options as it holds more sound (information) than CD,s mp3,s etc.

They can due to poor mastering techniques or compression algorithms, yes. I'll stick to lossless formats though as vinyl tends to degrade with use..

[MattiasNYC]

Any decent record should be favored over other options as it holds more sound (information) than CD,s mp3,s etc.

I'm not sure this is entirely accurate so I have to disagree. Vinyl records with certain dynamic and frequency ranges risk having needles pop out of the grooves and so the two are limited to prevent that. With digital you can get a wider dynamic range (level) and be within the range of human hearing. There's also system noise to deal with and I doubt vinyl is better in that aspect.

So as much as I like the sound of vinyl I don't think I agree with what you wrote.

My personal tracks for checking different systems:

Steely Dan - Gaucho, Aja and Two Against Nature (album)
James Taylor - Hourglass (album)


lately also

Los Lobos - Colossalhead (album)
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (album)
A Tribe Called Quest - any track with decent lowend, like "Phife's Return"
Busta Rhymes - same deal, low end, like "Ill Vibe" or "Do The Bus a Bus"
The Yellowjackets - Like A River (album)
John Scofield - Grace Under Pressure (album)
The Roots - Do You Want More? (album)

[jason str]

I'm not sure this is entirely accurate so I have to disagree. Vinyl records with certain dynamic and frequency ranges risk having needles pop out of the grooves and so the two are limited to prevent that. With digital you can get a wider dynamic range (level) and be within the range of human hearing. There's also system noise to deal with and I doubt vinyl is better in that aspect.

So as much as I like the sound of vinyl I don't think I agree with what you wrote.

My personal tracks for checking different systems:

Steely Dan - Gaucho, Aja and Two Against Nature (album)
James Taylor - Hourglass (album)


lately also

Los Lobos - Colossalhead (album)
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (album)
A Tribe Called Quest - any track with decent lowend, like "Phife's Return"
Busta Rhymes - same deal, low end, like "Ill Vibe" or "Do The Bus a Bus"
The Yellowjackets - Like A River (album)
John Scofield - Grace Under Pressure (album)
The Roots - Do You Want More? (album)

Digital recordings do not pick up all of the sound, only timed snapshots of the recording.

More detailed explanation. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

Only abused records will actually skip a groove though wear and or abuse will cause noise on a vinyl record.

The difference is very obvious playing a clean album on a good system.

[MattiasNYC]

Digital recordings do not pick up all of the sound, only timed snapshots of the recording.

More detailed explanation. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

YIKES! That article is beyond terrible. I really think you should forget most of what it says. It should then be banned from the internetz.

Briefly regarding what we're discussing: neither vinyl nor CD or "High-Def" digital will pick up all frequencies. Sample theory is based on a theory that states that any complex waveform can be reduced to a given set of sine waves at different amplitudes at any given point in time. Since what's needed to describe a sine wave are two points (samples) the highest frequency we want to capture is thus sampled twice. At a sample rate of 44.1kHz we are getting "all of the sound" below half of that frequency, minus the filter. That's how sampling works.

Only abused records will actually skip a groove though wear and or abuse will cause noise on a vinyl record.

The first thing you wrote is actually the result of what I was saying. Vinyl records have had their signals modified to fit the medium (vinyl records) in order for them to not skip. You don't have to do that for digital. So in essence you can actually capture more with digital within certain ranges.

As for noise I'm pretty certain a digital signal with all "0"s is quieter than "no sound" on a vinyl LP that's spinning with the needle in a groove.

The difference is very obvious playing a clean album on a good system.

It certainly can be. And people will then prefer one over the other for various reasons. I just wanted to clarify that there isn't 'more information of undisputed value' (for lack of a better wording) on vinyl record compared to a CD.

[jason str]

I would be more than happy to speak more about the record vs compressed recordings but this is just not the place. Feel free to start another thread if you feel the need is there.

If you were closer i would invite you over for a listen to both on my main system.