Audio purists - favorite recordings to give your stereo a workout?

Yes Big Generator. Absolutely stellar production, and was the CD I brought to Circuit City way back when I bought my Advent floor speakers. (And I cranked it!)

I think I also brought DSotM, which of course is also great, but not quite as full as BG.

 
I'm not a stereophile, but since nobody has mentioned either:

Both Eric Johnson's Ah Via Musicom and Steve Vai's Passion and Warfare are pretty excellent!
 
Wow! I'm seeing a few previously listed that I use as a benchmark to test my car stereo, studio speakers, etc.

Queensryche - "Empire". It was mixed so well and loud.
Heart - "Straight on For You". The intro pumps
Pantera - "I'm Broken"
Fight - "Life in Black". Rob Halford's band from the 90's. It's also got Satchel from Steel Panther. The whole album pumps.
Kings X - "Lost in Germany"
Hall & Oats - "She's Gone"

If any of those sound like sh!t, the stereo is jacked up and you might want to get it looked at....lol.
 
Dpoirier said:
1-) Rickie-Lee Jones' first album (particularly the tracks "Last chance Texaco" and "Night train"). How this unknown artist (at the time) managed to get such pristine recording quality is mind-boggling.

2-) Steely Dan (anything from Gaucho or Aja). The precision, the clarity, and the super-wide sound stage that extends well beyond the width of your speaker placement is still a standard against which many other recordings are measured.
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Moondog Wily said:
Back in the day, my go to album to take to stereo stores when shopping was "Dark Side Of The Moon"! IMO, it covers all the bases to test a system, especially the beginning of the track "Time". "Great Gig In The Sky" with the wailing vocals is another track that can really tell you what a system can do with a nice voice.
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I used to sell high-end systems in the late 70s and early 80s.

The above albums were mainstays in our sound room. Also, Alan Parson’s first couple albums, and, my favorite was an album by Michael Dinner called “The Great Pretender”, that seems to be unavailable. There’s a ripped version on YouTube that hints at what a beautiful sounding album it is.



I am impressed by the Steven Wilson remixes of a number of Yes albums also.

 
I test/calibrate everything with these three albums as reference.
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and I agree, YouTube really does kill audio quality. Nothing below 50Hz and above 20kHz. I've had friends argue they can't tell the difference, but it's clear as day to me.
 
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Greg Ferguson said:
I used to sell high-end systems in the late 70s and early 80s.

The above albums were mainstays in our sound room. Also, Alan Parson’s first couple albums, and, my favorite was an album by Michael Dinner called “The Great Pretender”, that seems to be unavailable. There’s a ripped version on YouTube that hints at what a beautiful sounding album it is.



I am impressed by the Steven Wilson remixes of a number of Yes albums also.

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And of course Alan Parsons being engineer on DSOTM and you can understand his place in the sonic landscape that is critical to system testing! Whether people like his music or not, he is a legend!!
 
when I want to try new headphones or speakers,I always play these at first as a reference

Korn : untouchable, issues, follow the leader
Nirvana : nevermind
Metallica : black album
Sepultura : roots

These records have such a big production that these are always good test to me

I still listen to vinyls at home, cds in the car… I have an iPod for traveling with all my records in it. I have no problem to listen to bad quality recordings if I have no choice, but I like the ritual listening to a full album with the cover in my hands, the lyrics etc.
An album is a piece of art to me, I like to respect the artists giving them money if I like their stuff and don’t hesitate to have 4 copies of the same records (different support, limited, color vinyl blabla) when I love it.
 
I did a Professional Certification in Studio Production through Berklee back in 2009. The first course was a Critical Listening course and they had a list of reference CDs we were required to get and analyzed the fuck out of through as many listening set-ups as we could. I still use these as my reference audio. Specifically:

Aja (Steely Dan)
So (Peter Gabriel)
Mercury Falling (Sting) (I also like Ten Summoners Tale which I've also listened to A LOT)
Fourplay (Fourplay)

Outside of that, I love and am extremely familiar with the following for the same usage:

World Sinfonia (Al Dimeola)
Brother Sister (Brand New Heavies)
Kind of Blue (Miles)
Gretchen Goes to Nebraska (Kings X)
Mezzanine (Massive Attack)
Empire (Queensryche)
Legion of Boom (Crystal Method)
Chrystal Planet and Strange Beautiful Music (Satriani)
 
Wired said:
This one is on my list too. That and anything else produced by Daniel Lanois.
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I'm not familiar enough with it to use it as an audio reference, but his album Belladonna is insanely good from a production/sonic playground perspective.
 
TheloniusJ said:
I'm not familiar enough with it to use it as an audio reference, but his album Belladonna is insanely good from a production/sonic playground perspective.
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Daniel Lanois produced So (Peter Gabriel). Agreed, Belladonna sounds awesome.
Check out Black Dub.
 
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