What's your reference?

[Mark Bassett]

What records do folks use for critical listening, testing speakers, headphones, or just unfamiliar systems?

In my short list are

Counting Crows - August and Everything After
Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine
Metallica - Black
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...
Jeff Buckley - Grace
John Mayer - Room for Squares
Pearl Jam - Ten
Tool - Lateralus

This might seem a little 90's heavy, but I find that if these records sound right to me, everything else does too.

It might be worth mentioning that I went to Montreal in 2010 to help a uni colleague Dave Spargo (brilliant Syd-based acoustician BTW - Praxis Acoustics) with some impulse response measurements at McGill. We had the ability to make the (relatively large) listening room (almost) entirely anechoic, entirely reflective (plasterboard walls) or entirely diffuse (using RPG diffusors).

The reason for the story is that the best sound reproduction I have ever heard (including every commercial studio I've ever been in) out of a stereo setup was when we set the room to be close to totally diffuse (except for the floor/corners, room totally empty), with a stereo setup, and I put on Forty Six & 2 by Tool.

No system I have had the pleasure of hearing has EVER come close to what I heard in that room, including their critical listening room next door with B & Ws.

It's a first hand lesson in how much influence the room has on the sound.

Oh, the loudspeakers were Genelec.

[gigpiglet]

mine are a similar mix
maybe a bit different as i use the same ones on live PA systems as well as studios...

Tool - Aenema (eulogy and forty six & 2)
Johnny Cash - american (down there by the train and like a soldier)
Tom Waits - mule variations (big in japan)
Cruel Sea - three legged dog (better get a lawyer)
gillian Welsh - sould journey (look at miss ohio)
green day - american idiot (boulevard of broken dreams)
marcy playground - (i smell sex and candy)
Metallica - st anger (st anger and some kind of monster)
shane nicholson - acoustic EP

to me there is a "reason" for every one of those tracks
one i might listen for stereo spread, another i understand the bass, or sibilence.
for instance the metallica tracks actually dont sound amazing, but the distortion in the top end (from being crazy limited) is not apparent on a bad system/ soft top end.. but i know its there and i should be hearing it.

tool and gillian are probably the only ones in the list that i think actually sound "great"
man i love tool


interested in you saying pearl jam - ten, mark.. i find that record nearly unlistenable, and probably wallaces' worst
but maybe like me, you have something bad in it that if you hear you understand..

[Wiz]

John Hiatts "Slow Turning" Album

Mark Knopfler "Devil Baby" "Ragpickers Dream"

Natalie Imbruglia "Torn" that song just makes me happy, don't know why considering the subject matter

[stosostu]

I like all of Wiz's selections, but I love to use Passion, Grace & Fire by John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucía.

It is also a good CD to put on when there is a smart arse guitar player setting up, it usually turns them into simpering wrecks

[Mark Bassett]

interested in you saying pearl jam - ten, mark.. i find that record nearly unlistenable, and probably wallaces' worst but maybe like me, you have something bad in it that if you hear you understand..

I just know that record so well, I know what should be there and what shouldn't.

[jkhuri44]

A tune which was never intended to be reference for me was:

*swine flu - by 16 bit.


incredible electronic engineering...distortion balancing/layering....psycho acoustic trickery, goes on....
up until my latest set up, i'd never heard some of the "360 degree" boomerang pans on that tune...
also, low bass..and lots of little detail down low in the mix....not to mention, killer killer tune.

[Drumstruck]

Really interesting topic Mark.

As always, my taste and usage is a bit left-field and not based on a commercial need... however, a list is a list:

Gong - Shamal (percussion and ethnic instruments)
Bob Dylan - Desolation Row (acoustic guitar and his voice)
Hawkwind - Spiral Galaxy (synths)
Captain Beyond - A Thousand Days of Yesterday (the psychedelic rock sound and rock vocal)
Karen Carpenter - Yesterday Once More (warm female vocals)
Jeannie Lewis - Glitter and Be Gay (clear female vocals)
John Williams - The Bach Lute Suite (classical guitar)
Frank Zappa - Bobby Brown (the big sound)
Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin (orchestral rock)

Somewhat related - I have a beautiful pair of Plessey prototype monitors that make everything sound great - so great that they give a false impression that everything sounds beautiful - I moved them aside recently and now use KRKs for a more "real world" monitoring approach.

[walding]

I use these for live and studio ref

Mark hollis

Steely dan Josie

Back in black

Lucinda williams blessed

The the Mind bomb

Jeff buckley grace

I also use one of my own recordings which I had the pleasure of listening to at the hi Fi yesterday when I was tuning the system there. Sounded nice on a line array

[Mal]

A meeting by the river...V M Bhatt & Ry Cooder
Charles Mingus-Ah Um
Holly Cole-Temptation
Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden-Jasmine
Taj Mahal-Like never before

always useful if possible to have some recordings you've recorded as familiar references..(especially
for checking bottom end..)
two from Sam Keevers Red fish Blue and Nat Bartsch Trio are a couple I use..