When I recently went to three different shops to compare speakers, I made my own mix, because it doesn't work too well to listen to a single CD that you're not as familiar with, or may not even like.
I figured I should put a good range of stuff, from old to new, light/spare to heavy and dense. Songs that I know inside and out. I'm a total music geek, so I actually made three CDs. I was embarrassed to whip out the third, so I just used the first two. I also brought a Cornelius 5.1 DVD.
Speaker Demo #1
01 Charlie Parker – A Night In Tunisia
02 Billie Holiday – Lover Man
03 Charles Brown – Black Night
04 Charles Mingus – II B.S.
05 The Creation – Making Time
06 James Brown – Funky Drummer
07 The Stooges – Down on the Street
08 Led Zeppelin – Ramble On
09 Curtis Mayfield – Little Child Runnin’ Wild
10 Cedric Brooks – Free Up Black Man
11 The Congos – Congoman
12 Steely Dan – Josie
13 The Buzzcocks – Orgasm Addict
14 Gang Of Four – Damaged Goods
15 Joy Division – Twenty Four Hours
16 Gary Numan – Cars
17 Rush – Tom Sawyer
18 Mision Of Burma – Learn How
19 Minor Threat – (I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone)
Speaker Demo #2
01 Big Star – Watch the sunrise
02 Prince – Kiss
03 Slayer – Raining Blood
04 Fugazi – Waiting Room
05 Entombed – Seeing Red
06 Public Enemy – War at 33-1/3
07 The Jesus Lizard – Gladiator
08 Laika – 44 Robbers
09 Tricky – Hell Is Around the Corner
10 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Asian Dub Foundation – Tao Deem Remix
11 Radiohead – Airbag
12 Squarepusher – Rustic Raver
13 The Flaming Lips – The Spark That Bled
14 Amon Tobin – Saboteur
15 Four Tet – Hands
16 The Mars Volta – Inertiatic ESP
17 Mastodon – I Am Ahab
18 My Computer – The Boy I Used To Be
Third CD included Disco Inferno (the group, not the disco song), Sonic Youth, Metallica, Beastie Boys, Shellac, Tortoise, DJ Shadow, Atari Teenage Riot, and Rachmoninov. They always have classical on hand though.
It would be interesting to see others post their choices here.
