Movies / Music for evaluating speakers

[hopjohn]

I've always found it interesting the type of music reviewers use to evaluate speakers. Just curious what you all use when doing the same.

Here is a list of a few things I find useful.

Extreme Bass Tests

Terminator 2 Judgement Day The scene where the 18 wheeler crashes into the concrete barrier inside the aquaduct and explodes.

End Of Days - the scene where the pews in the church are thrown all over by the satan character near the end of the film.

Master and Commander - Any scene where there are firing cannons involved. All I'll say is... hang on for dear life!

Musicality/Frequency Tests

The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over - DTS - Hotel California instrumental intro
A very natural recording of what an acoustical guitar should sound like. Also check out the vocals on the track Seven Bridges Road.

Herb Alpert - Rise - Tracks 1, 2, 5, 8 or Pretty much the entire CD. It is filled with electronic sounds and a brass section, with a nice blend of mid bass bongos. An excellent test for the quality of midrange/mid bass frequencies. Also it is great for fooling your wife/gf into thinking you are watching a 70's porn flick.

Eric Clapton - The Cream of Clapton - Bell Bottom Blues
There are some excellent vocals in this track, and use it for judging tonal accuracy. They should sound raspy without being bright, or over excentuated.

Surround prescence

Pink Floyd - DSOTM - SACD Track 3 On the Run. The is great for evaluating the seamlessness of each speaker within a multi channel setup. Particularly where the man is running around the room. Time on the other hand will give you a migraine during its intro of alarms/chimes going off.

X-Men 2 - There are some subtle echoes in the surround channels scene where Professor Xavier is whispering while using cerebro, if properly setup these whispers sound extremely convincing.

[Perseous]

I have 4 Large floor speakers and center. So CD's mostly sound better in stereo, But DVD's I play in Harmon Kardon Logic 7, 5.1
Fronts Infinity Overture 3
Center Infinity IL25
Rears Infinity IL60's
no sub yet Barrowing friends Velodyne VA1215

CD:The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over, Harmon Kardon 5 channel Stereo (Hotel California) Plays INCREDIBLE! ONE of my FAVORITES :)

DVD: Fleetwood Mac - The Dance, Track 4 Gold Dust Woman, Track 11 Landslide, Track17 Rhiannon.

[Westrock2000]

Star Wars Episode 1 Phantom Menace on Laserdisc....pod scene in particular....very dynamic

Vangelis (mostly "Oceanic" and "Themes")...The End Theme To The Bounty, actually got me into home audio, as I wanted a stereo that could play that song without distorting the top end or bottoming out.

The Cure's "Disintegration" album....excellent imaging and depth

All Enigma albums :)

[nadnklipsch]

Steely Dan-AJA on MFSL GOLD CD

[nadnklipsch]

Also, now that I'm thinking about it, Queensyche's "Empire" on DCC is a great sounding disc. It would be wonderful for evaluating stereo equipment for music.

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

For stereo review:

David Bowie - Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold The World are my two favorite tracks for soundstage and L/R separation

Judas Priest - Exciter for panning left to right and back again. Pretty much any song for using Rob's scream as a good male vocal high note

Nirvana - Jesus Doesn't Want me for a Sunbeam. This is my male vocal tenor track

Leonard Cohen - And heres my male vocal bass track

Min Xiao-Fen - Stone Forest Nocturne. This track I use to check for a "metallic" sounding speaker.

Conan The Barbarian sountrack. This is all-round favorite dynamic range album.

For Home theater review:

Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring (extended edition). I only need thsi movie and I'll have a pretty good idea of what a system can do. If I'm bored and want a second bass-test I'll use my handy copy of....

The Matrix Revolutions. From the time Neo leaves the hovercraft and enters the machine city, its all good.

[Gatorchong]

If you go to www.phasetech.com they have some pretty good recommendations for audition music. Mostly vocal stuff, but very cool. You gotta go to their listening room link.

[spenny]

Bass:
Leftfield - Rhythm and Stealth
LTJ Bukem - Journey Inwards

Mid:
Sasha - XPander EP
Ludocivo Einaudi - Echoes

Treble:
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons (the second and third winter pieces)
LTJ Bukem - Journey Inwards

Precision:
Mirwais - Disco Science
Goldfrapp - Black Cherry
Chicane - Far From the Maddening Crowds

[djoxygen]

For Bass: Yello - Flag - Track 5 "The Race"

There is an extended instrumental section in the middle with a bass groove. The 2nd to last note in the repeating riff goes down, but any speaker that isn't producing sufficient low-end power will miss the fundamental and the note sounds an octave higher. For some reason the harmonic content of this note won't psychoacoustically resolve to the correct note, so it's a cake way to hear low-end response. Most bookshelf and non-sub car speakers will blow it on this one.

In general, any Yello is good stereo reference as it is some of the best engineered music ever, especially their late '80s and early '90s work. They record in a castle in the Alps, so much of the ambience isn't digitally simulated, it's stone halls and wood rooms. Footsteps come from behind you, pass by your ear, and continue into the front wall. Orchestral hits sound like Carnegie Hall.

For Female Vocals: Sarah Mclachlan. After her 1st couple records, she got the budget to record proper-like. If you close your eyes and she doesn't sound like she's in the room with you, move on.

I'll prolly think of others, but it's time to split for home.

[Krazykaj]

here are a few off the top of my head,

Music

Maddona - The Immaculate Collection
Eagles - Hell Freezes Over
Cat Steves - The Best Of
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Supertramp - The Very Best Of
And one CD i found on the shelf with i thought was great and will be added to the collection is the ANTZ Movie Soundtrack :D , It is great, a huge variety of styles of music, great dynamics, great bass tracks. I was suprised.

For multichannel,

you can't go past the Chesky Magnificent, Absurd & Ansane Musical 5.1 Surround Show :p . Especially for Bass. But the surround is Awsome! and it is in high resolution audio as well.
The Star Wars Pod Race Scene
Master and Commander, the opening Scenes.
And pretty much everything in English from this site is probably better than you could by on a demo disk to show off your system Swedish Radio 5.1 (http://www.sr.se/multikanal/english/e_index.stm)
And any of the LOTR DVD's in DTS ES 6.1
Paycheck is pretty good aslo

for Music Multichannel

Eagles - Hell Freezes Over/Hotel Califonia
America - Home Coming
Queen - Night at the opera
Most Eric clapton
Pink Floyd - Dark side of the Moon
Roy Orbison - Black and White Night
Most Fleetwood Mac


i'll add any more as i think of them :)

Cheers
KJ