Good tracks for checking soundstage and imaging (1 Viewer)

Hi guys,
Can someone recommend me good recorded tracks to check speakers' soundstage and imaging, I really appreciate your help.

Patricia Barber - Cafe Blue Done by Mobile Fidelity (SACD preferably). Simply an excellently recorded disc. If you can audition with SACD, the 2ch SACD layer is stunning, but even the CD layer is amazing. I like to use tracks 11 and 12. There is a lot of presence in the recording, and you should get a good sense of where you are relative to the musicians, particularly on those two tracks.

I like to use the Dolby Digital tracks on my James Taylor: Live at Beacon Theater DVD. Not only is it a very well recorded disk, You can listen to it in Dolby Stereo, or 5.1. The Video transfer is also very clean, sharp and saturated. I use it for a demo disk.

Steve

If you are going to use a DVD, then Diana Krall: Live in Paris (DTS) and Eagles: Hell Freezes Over (full bitrate DTS), are great.

Any more recommendations?

I happen to have Patricia barber's Cafe Blue, terrific CD, if a bit too sibilant (no, it's not my system, I've used it as a test CD and felt the same way everywhere I heard it.)

Track 11 (Nardis) is my favorite. I picked up the album after I heard it on some $12K Dynaudio towers at the HES in NYC a couple of years ago. Sublime.

--
H

Something that always impressed me in the past - I haven't checked to see if it held up on the recent DVD release - was the opening of STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - original version. The musical introduction, the destroyers launching the probes, people running around on the ice-planet, Han riding through the hanger-bay, talking to Chewie, and then going into the base control room.

A decent stereo pair will recreate as convincing a sound-stage as a discreet digital system, if you're sitting in their "sweet spot."

Leo

I've always liked the way the 2.0 version of Silver Springs from Fleetwood Mac's "The Dance" sounded. The backup guitar seems to float around the room. Lindsey plays a pretty good lead too, BTW . Also, a well played and recorded piano seems to sound really good to me, though I can't pull up an individual example at the moment. Must be getting old .

Any more?

This forum is full to the brim of folks going on and on and on about "soundstage this" and "imaging that" and midrange this" and "highs that" and you can't even recommend a couple of measly CDs?

Eric Clapton Unplugged is an excellent recording.

--
H

Roger Waters' "Amused to Death" has the most enveloping 2-ch sound I've heard. A well-set up system/room will image fully 90 degrees to your left and right, well beyond the speakers, as long as you're precisely in the sweet spot. Huge fan of his solo work, so I can easily just melt into this one.

Probably the most delicate and nuanced imaging I have ever heard in a movie is the closing sequence in Talk to Her. This is the closing stage performance and is basically the background to the credits. If you have good imaging, it starts kind of flat and even a little noisy right in the center, then it slowly blends out into the room and finally just floats over your head to the back. If you don't hear all that, your system is not optimum. My "Main" system reproduces it perfectly, but my living room one doesn't even come close.

Movies:

Kill Bill Vol.1 and the new Rambo display LFE well.

KB Vol.1's first fight scene provides good stress to the upper freq's with the breaking glass and such.

The high powered weaponry should provide as much sound effect on your system as it does on the bodies of the extras in the movie. It's a nice stressor for your system if you can bear the gore.

Music:

Willie Nelson's "Moment of Forever" tests a good range of freq's with Willie's low, guttural and greavely voice and some impressive bass.

One most have never heard of that will certainly test your system's bass freq's is Benjie Porecki's "The Rest of My Life." It features Keter Betts on bass and the mix-ologist for this record label (Severn Records) definitely didn't want you to miss any of Keter's power. It also has Chuck Brown (Yea, the "Godfather" of Go Go) doing vocals on an extremely soulful and jazzy "Here's to Life."

The Best of Maxim Vengerov's (Disc 11) rendition of Dvorak's "Violin Concerto in A minor, Op.53" has violins that should be as sharp as an Hatori Hanzo sward. The power of the full orchestral phrases should provide a nice, full-range stress to any system.

Alison Krauss's "Oh Atlanta" on "Now That I've Found You" gives good test to mid-range freq's with the acoustic guit's and her voice on a good system is like a velvet razor.

CD's I use to audition speakers:

Alison Krauss & Union Station - Live [LIVE]
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones - Greatest Hits Of The 20th Century
Dave Matthews Band - Before These Crowded Streets

I also use some classical cd's but they have strange titles and I can't think of them off the top of my head.

This is a really fun thread!

I'm surprised more people have not contributed their favorite "high octane" audio tracks.

I'd really like to see this thread provide a lot of pages that I can keep as an audio reference.

Come on HTF'ers let us know what really gets your systems pump'n.

And let us know what sub you have pump'n the low end.

OK, these suggestions aren't quite in the league of others, but:

The movie PI (the symbol, not the word) has a scene where the camera makes a full turn while someone is speaking to a crowd. The sound pans very nicely through all 5 channels.

Also, I just realized how amazing the surround is on some games...I'm not a gamer, but my BD player can also do games (oh, guess which one!) While standing near noisy things like fires, waterfalls, or people talking, just turn your view around and around. Wild!

The Gladiator soundtrack is the only CD I have from the list to which I linked. It is a wonder of clarity and dynamics.

--
H

Check out Cars. THX intro is very nice for showing off new installs. Also the whole movie was very well done for surround sound and visually.

ChameleonAudio.ca