Best bass CD's/ songs for the ultimate test of any speaker system? (1 Viewer)

[Leif Wall]

Gorillaz - Punk


The beginning dips down to 20hz.

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

Erykah Badu's BADUIZM. This whole album has some outstanding upright and synth bass that will really impress you at volume.

 

[David_Stein]

sunn o))) - 00 void

how can you not like a band who is described like this:

The SUNN0))) mission is to create trance like soundscapes with the ultimate low end/bottom frequencies intended to massage the listeners intenstines into a act of defecation. SUNN 0))) have gathered 2x for live performances, at which they have succesfully made audience members instantly nauseous, or better yet run for the toilet in terror.

they are sort of a sludge metal band.

 

[Keith Shaw]

Album: Pomp and Pipes
Label: Reference Recordings
Tracks: All of them, especially 1, 2, 4, & 9

This is a great disc if you like full wind orchestra and organ... (think 16hz pedal tones at full blast)

What he said. Track 4 is great.

 

[Gary Q]

Lots of great bass in the early Genesis stuff. Mike Rutherford created some of the most wonderful, melodic bass—and some of it gets real low.

Check out esp. Selling England by the Pound.

“Firth of Fifth,” in the middle and towards the end it gets real low.
And there’s some really neat jazzy stuff in “The Battle of Epping Forest.”

For more great Rutherford bass, give A Trick of the Tail a whirl—one of the finest engineered albums out there.
All great stuff up to and including And Then There Were Three, but after that, Genesis without Gabriel became too Pop for my tastes.

 

[Eric_Strickl]

Wow I am surprised most of you are naming guitar and drums music, what's with that???? Synthetic bass is the only way to go. Pick up just about any chemical brothers or tcm disk and you will be blow away. When I put in tcm disk I have to turn the volume down at least 10dB from my normal listening level! If you want to see your woofers flex go with electronic music or techno (techno is a sub genre of electronic music and it hasn't been listen to for years) as the "audiophiles" on this site seem to call it.

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

Synth bass is good for evaluating overall output, sure... But a lot of lesser subs can thump out synth bass. The test of a sub, in my opinion, is how capable it is of cleanly reproducing the actual tone of bass notes without making them muddy. That's why I love my SVS! Many of the suggested selections above are excellent for testing the musicality of a sub.

More importantly, drum and guitar are good indicators of sound placement and transparency across the front soundstage, which is important for putting any speaker setup through its paces. For instance, one of my favorite bands to listen to on my system is NICKEL CREEK. It's kinda' pop-bluegrass, so you get some beautiful guitar work, sweet bass guitar and very pure vocals. To me, that's more important than pounding out techno beats until the neighbors complain.

 

[Marc H]

I'm with Jeremy on this, I try and hear the different tones and flavours in the bass along with good attack and decay.
Track three on the Gabriel disc is a good test for that.

 

[Phil Iturralde]

That sets the tone for the rest of the date, as the band romps through eight more originals by Goodwin and the other by Johann Sebastian.

Sound-bite clips can be sampled @ CDNow or Gordon Goodwin's website - linked above.

Phil

 

[Ronnie Ferrell]

More importantly, drum and guitar are good indicators of sound placement and transparency across the front soundstage, which is important for putting any speaker setup through its paces... To me, that's more important than pounding out techno beats until the neighbors complain.

Me too! I also use Nickel Creek or Alison Krauss- New Favorite to test out different systems.


Ronnie

 

[Leif Wall]

The most impressive cd for my car stereo is:

Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz - Kings of Crunk


The lyrics are pretty lame, but holy hell the beats are just insane. Some do go low to, not just in the 40hz range. Play this on a good car stereo and it will hurt.

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

Me too! I also use Nickel Creek or Alison Krauss- New Favorite to test out different systems.

Alison Krauss' New Favorite is outstanding for auditioning speakers! I lean more toward Now That I've Found You though.

Another really good one is Jonatha Brooke's STEADY PULL, on either CD or DVD-A. There's some outstanding bass on that, as well as some great vocal work and guitar. Also, if you want to see how funky your system can be, there's nothing like throwing in any CD by GROOVE COLLECTIVE.

You have to remember that bass is only part of the picture. You can put a SVS with some Kenwood speakers and you'll end up with great bass, but absolutely crappy quality as far as music. Your speakers have to be able to produce bass IN CONJUNCTION with your sub, so that you aren't losing directionality in mid and upper bass. But you also need to have those same speakers reproduce the mids and highs at consistent levels with the bass. That's why bluegrass stuff is good for auditioning systems -- you get a mix of good bass guitar (and there's nothing like a solid thump on an upright bass to test a sub), great acoustic guitars, the pluck of banjos and usually a really incredible vocalist.

The wierd thing is... I listen mostly to punk rock... but on my home system, folk and bluegrass finds its way into the player as much as hardcore punk and ska.