Hello Roonsters, I’m really interested to hear what tracks show off your system best or perhaps which track or tracks you might have on your playlist if you were going to audition some new gear.
I’m really interested in this because I was doing some research for some new speakers the other day (like you do) and was reading a thread where some bod mentioned what tunes he listened to when he was auditioning new speakers. One of them was “St Louis Blues” by Larry Coryell, and I realised I’d never even heard of him so I gave that track a listen. Anyway TLDR I thought #$&%! that sounds so good I don’t even need any new speakers!!
So please share which albums or tracks especially shine at showing off hifi prowess so we can spend more time listening and more less time spending. It’s not a competition of sorts but hopefully a useful resource for other Roonsters to refer to without thinking they have to buy new gear!
My contribution is Duke Ellington’s “Afro Bossa” album and in particular the tracks Tigress, Sempre Amore and Pyramid.
“Saeta”, from Sketches of Spain, Miles Davis. At about 2:45, Miles is playing a solo. Then the entire group enters. On the original 1960 Columbia six eye stereo LP (CS 8271), on the Mobile Fidelity SACD, and on the recent Legacy CD, there is a remarkable musical bass thump. Actually, that whole track is a favorite go-to for system checking among my equipment.
Take Five, Dave Brubeck (time out)
Give me one reason, Tracy Chapman (New Beginning)
Giorgio by Moroder, Daft Punk (Random access memories)
Nomad, Bedouin Burger (Nomad)
Walk on the wild side, Lou Reed (Transformer)
Bridge, Amon Tobin (Beautiful Boy)
Piano sonata no 17, Fazil Say (Beethoven: Complete piano sonatas)
Keith don’t go, Nils Lofgren (Acoustic live)
I heard “Kieth Don’t Go” for the first time due to @Torben_Rick playlist here:
What an amazing track!
I have lots of reference tracks.
For clean bass “scales”, I go for “Circumpsection” by Daev Martian
For proper stereo placement, I go for tracks that have phase effects, such as “Late Home Tonight, Pt. 1” by Roger Waters or “Exhale Inhale” by Aurora.
My torture track is “First Light Of Winter” by Miranda Lee Richards. There is a bass bloom exactly 8 seconds in. In a perfect location, the bloom is 3-D, but in practical room locations, you can hear the tone change but no 3-D bloom. In lesser headphones, I don’t hear a tone change at all! It is my favorite torture track.
Paul from PSAudio has listed the track in his one of his videos, he also has posted some playlists Paul’s Picks updated – PS Audio I was watching way to much of that a year ago
@Torben_Rick has a really nice list and was kind to share them.
I listen mostly classical, and there mostly chamber so base doesn’t come in so often. I have 2 entry level subs (Yamaha sw300) but I have to do some room correction to keep that under control a bit. So to test that I use يا من حوى from Bedouin Burger. Just to check that the corrections stay only in the base area.
I just learned that exporting the playlist from Roon as Excel and then copying the Excel cell range (though I did that in Numbers on the Mac) and pasting it into the forum automatically creates this pretty format.
I just learned that copy paste into a google sheet and export as csv while not working ok with soundiz the tunemymusic gave me only 4 errors Now I’m just waiting for roon to sync to tidal
The last Giant Sand one on the list is my high point. Also interesting because the same album has the original mix of Shiver as track #7. They worked with John Parish on some parts of the album and he had also been one of the engineers on the original recording of that song, but eventually he found that mix and thought he could do better. And boy he did. In case anyone has doubts whether the mix/master has the greatest influence on SQ
It’s a wonderful album generally, as are most Giant Sand. As is their / Howe Gelb’s usual MO, some tracks were made up on the spot during recording based on vague ideas. E.g., Howe says that #12, No Reply, and #10, Dirty from the Rain, didn’t exist at all before these moments in the studio. In some spots particularly on #12 you can hear the band searching for what to do next, it’s amazing. On #10, the engineers had expected a louder song, so when they suddenly played this quiet one instead they had tape hiss, as you can hear in the first second. Jim Dickinson, who was also one of the engineers, turned on the water fountain in the studio to cover it.
(Sadly the default metadata in Roon for this leaves much to be desired)
I used this playlist during the system rebuild 2020/21 and listened to it countless times. It checks all I need to like the sound and best of all I love the music and am still not tired of it. As for pure SQ moments on the playlist, I love the flutist on the right in Nico’s track licking his lips and quickly pressing some keys before starting to play. Or the presence of Nick Talbot in the Gravenhurst track being felt by his body sounds before he starts singing.
The first one on the list is Giant Sand’s main man, Howe Gelb, with a Spanish flamenco band, the album being recorded on a roof in Córdoba. Mostly older Giant Sand / Howe songs. (Howe recorded about 60 albums with GS, alone, and in various projects, and some songs appear many times in different versions. Sadly, Roon’s composition metadata for showing cover versions is not always great there. Took me a lot of editing and still cannot be made perfect)
Back from groceries, roon synced with tidal, now slowly playing the playlist… Thank you again, if not for this thread, moment and you, probably hardly I would had a chance to play them… so it is “a perfect day”
Nothing beats concerts
An amazing album. They recorded that Blackout album (originally released only in Germany as Stromausfall (= Blackout in German)) in-between actually recording the Purge & Slouch album, and one day decided to record an impromptu set of acoustic versions of older tracks, which became Blackout.
Mt. of Love was originally released as Mountain of Love on one of their very best albums, The Love Songs, an early one with blisteringly hot southern rock. Robes of Bible Black from Blackout is also first on that one.
When you are done with GS, you may also want check out Howe’s solo work (although there are several on streaming, there are actually many more (Bandcamp)), as well as OP8 and Arizona Amp and Alternator. The HG bible fansite with a somewhat official full discography and a huge live archive: http://www.sa-wa-ro.com
Love this thread. Here’s my 2 cents… Firth of Fifth on Genesis’ Selling England by the Pound. Have always used this track when testing potential new audio gear.
Just about any record on the ACT Label is a no brainer. If you like Jazz, they have great recording quality and the mixes art more up front than most for a more intimate listening session. Qobuz is the only service that allows you to search by Label, so you have to favorite them in Qobuz and they will show up in Roon or you could find the ones you like and do an Artist search in Roon. A few of the artists I really like are: Lars Danielsson, Dieter Ilg, Iiro Rantala, Wolfgang Hafner, and Caecilie Norby. Check them out!
How do tot do this? I went to the label page for ACT Music (where they list the catalogue) and don’t see a way of marking it.
BTW they don’t make it easy to find the label. I searched “ACT Music” and got a bunch of artists listings that have nothing to do with the label. Then I picked some album from the ACT webpage and picked it in A o by Qobuz and clicked on the record label. Is there a better way to get to the label?