best songs for testing surround sounds system

[the caveman]

hey guys am looking for some music to test my surround sound system
have heard that listening to just a drummer playing is good as u should be able to hear each different piece of his drum set through a different speaker or something ?
any ideas ??
thanks jesse

 

[skizzerflake]

hey guys am looking for some music to test my surround sound system
have heard that listening to just a drummer playing is good as u should be able to hear each different piece of his drum set through a different speaker or something ?
any ideas ??
thanks jesse

I don't think you're going to find much like that. Surround recordings I have heard are recorded to sound like an authentic performance (as though you were in the 10th row or thereabouts), not like you're sitting at the center of a bunch of musicians. I have heard some excellent surround recordings, but none of them had the center perspective.

 

[yepimonfire]

coldplays clocks run through a prologic II decoder does just what skizzer was describing since there is alot of natural ambience to the recording. most well imaged stereo songs run through prologic II work well, classical music is pretty impressive also, i've been to enough classical music concerts to know what it should sound like and what PLII can do with a stereo classical recording is quite impressive. actual multichannel recordings are unfortunately hard to find and limited since multichannel music never really took off i agree you should not hear the drums all around you, what you should hear is the delayed decay of the drums similar to what you would hear if someone were to play drums in a large concert hall. hearing drum heads all around me would be weird and would defeat the entire purpose of being an audiophile IMO, after all, the main goal is to attempt to reproduce music as if you were really there isn't it?

 

[TLS Guy]

hey guys am looking for some music to test my surround sound system
have heard that listening to just a drummer playing is good as u should be able to hear each different piece of his drum set through a different speaker or something ?
any ideas ??
thanks jesse

This recording will do everything you want. Just make sure all your speakers are highly capable or they will be destroyed.

This is an astonishing disc.

 

[the caveman]

Thanks will give it a go.

 

[TLS Guy]

Thanks will give it a go.

Do you have an SACD player? You can't get surround (5.0) without an SACD player.

Also this is a European disc that requires the rear channels to be close to the rear corners of the room. The European and American speaker layouts for SACD are different. European SACDs generally are strictly 5.0, as is the case with this disc.

 

[the caveman]

Um... no :S dont have a SACD player. but i was going to see if i could download a full digital recording. As for changing my system to work in 5.0 shouldn't be to hard.
thanks again for the heads up.

 

[TLS Guy]

Um... no :S dont have a SACD player. but i was going to see if i could download a full digital recording. As for changing my system to work in 5.0 shouldn't be to hard.
thanks again for the heads up.

You can't download an SACD. It is not PCM based but DSD based.

 

[the caveman]

yeah i found that problem (while doing some googling) looks like im getting a receiver will be able to play SACD anyways
thanks a heap

 

[TLS Guy]

yeah i found that problem (while doing some googling) looks like im getting a receiver will be able to play SACD anyways
thanks a heap

You also need a drive that can read them.

 

[j_garcia]

Every Porcupine Tree DVD-A would be good also Again, you will need a player that is capable of reading them however.

You are going to want to read this thread as well:http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67405

 

[yepimonfire]

try the beatles love album as well, aside from the disc being in surround sound, it has mind blowing clarity thanks to its 96khz 24bit sampling. this is the reason i tell people who say 16 bit 44.1khz sampling is all your ears can hear, are idiots. the clarity and presence of high sampling rates is a truly mind bending experience, sigh....if only dvd-a stuck around....