What music to take for amp/speaker demo?

[SailToTheMoon]

Hi everyone. Thanks to all for the advice over the last week.

I’m travelling a couple of hours in the morning to audition amps and speakers to the nearest Peter Tyson store who are offering some great discounts. I intend to buy. I’ll be taking my brand new (still in its box) Rega P3 RS with me and asking them to use that for the demo.

They’ve said to bring my own vinyl so I can hear what my stuff sounds like. I’m wondering what kind of songs I should be looking to use to really test it. I’ve been buying a lot of brand new vinyl this week. It’s all kind of rock/indie/alternative I suppose: Nirvana, Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Can Morrison, Tom Petty, Stone Roses, Arctic Monkeys, Bluetones.

Should I be looking to take examples of balls to the wall loud rock type stuff? Or quiet acoustic? Stuff with strings? all of the above? Something else?

I’m not sure what would be best to let me hear the difference in quality between the setups I’ll be trying out.

Really wanting to get this right!

Thanks in advance!

 

[plastic penguin]

Any music that sounds the best on your current set-up or familiar with. Also take some rubbish recordings. This'll tell you how sonically flexible the system your testing will be.

 

[RTHerringbone]

I'm a fan of taking very varied tracks that you know well.

When I tested my current kit, two tracks I listened to were White Limo by the Foofighters and Norah Jones' She's 22. Slightly different 😂

I think if you can find a setup that can handle real variety, then you're onto a winner.

 

[SailToTheMoon]

Great advice, thanks!

 

[Fandango Andy]

The best advice is take records you know really well. Listen to see if you hear anything new in them, or miss something you usually hear. Try and get some variety. Male, and female voices. Electric and acoustic instruments.

Of the bands you mention, a few albums stand out as being really well produced: Highway 61 Revisited, Nevermind, The Bends.

A few of albums I like for tests:

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here. Very well produced and sonically complex. The same is true of The Bends.

Randy Crawford: Now We May Begin. It is a bit of a wall of sound, so no great soundstage, but the vocals are crystal clear, and there is some thumping bass.

Metallica S&M: Always good to throw a live album in as they offer something different. This one has a full orchestra too, so sounds amazing.

 

[SailToTheMoon]

This is is great mate, thanks! I’m on my way shortly and have changed what I’m taking based on your steer. Nevermind and The Bends now going.

 

[RTHerringbone]

Good choices. And in my earlier example, Territorial Pissings is my White Limo and Fake Plastic Trees my She's 22.

Totally agree with @Fandango Andy 's logic.

 

[RJW232]

Any music that sounds the best on your current set-up or familiar with. Also take some rubbish recordings. This'll tell you how sonically flexible the system your testing will be.

The rubbish recording tip is a very good one! Too often we tend to test with perfectly recorded music, but there's a lot of great music that's poorly recorded. Actually, I think the majority of music is poorly, or at least not top-notch, recorded. Maybe a system that masks a bit of recording faults may not extract everything from perfectly recorded sound but

The best advice is take records you know really well. Listen to see if you hear anything new in them, or miss something you usually hear. Try and get some variety. Male, and female voices. Electric and acoustic instruments.

Of the bands you mention, a few albums stand out as being really well produced: Highway 61 Revisited, Nevermind, The Bends.

A few of albums I like for tests:

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here. Very well produced and sonically complex. The same is true of The Bends.

Randy Crawford: Now We May Begin. It is a bit of a wall of sound, so no great soundstage, but the vocals are crystal clear, and there is some thumping bass.

Metallica S&M: Always good to throw a live album in as they offer something different. This one has a full orchestra too, so sounds amazing.

I would add a simple recording. E.g. Nirvana's MTV Unplugged album.

 

[plastic penguin]

The rubbish recording tip is a very good one! Too often we tend to test with perfectly recorded music, but there's a lot of great music that's poorly recorded. Actually, I think the majority of music is poorly, or at least not top-notch, recorded. Maybe a system that masks a bit of recording faults may not extract everything from perfectly recorded sound but

I would add a simple recording. E.g. Nirvana's MTV Unplugged album.

Yep, indeed.

 

[Gray]

Yes, but, it's an inescapable fact that a 'forgiving' system necessarily compromises your best recordings.

So it's a matter of priorities. If the majority of your recordings need forgiveness (bad luck) then you may be ok with your 'perfect' minority suffering some compromise.

(I went to my last dealer demo with a USB stick compilation of FLAC excerpts from many tracks, that I knew very well).