Taylor Swift - Breath - CD

Upper range of vocals can be shrill. On a "100%" correct system, Taylor Swift's voice should be tolerably slightly shrill along with other instruments, especially around the chorus.

My speaker setup is slightly laid back, so this track does not have any serious issues. Systems with too much emphasis in the middle mids to upper midrange will have issues with this track. The STAX 009 (which is not bright BTW) usually fails this test on most setups. This is both the fault of the recording and also the fault of the 009. (I think it's silly that most folks blame either one or the other, but never both.) 

Also I like a lot of the Taylor Swift material for DACs because her voice as a tendency of sounding very different between ladder and sigma-delta DACs. On SABRE DACs, her voice tends toward the grainy and raspy side.


Jennifer Warnes Rock You Gently

Some crazy sub and low bass. A good test for bass dynamics and extension. Also a little sharp with the percussion. That's how the recording should sound.


Eagles Hotel CA from Hell Freezes Over XRCD

Bass drop after the intro should have power and impact. Quite a few DACs go limp dick on this. Glenn Fry's voice should be sibilant. But not annoyingly so. Good for testing glare and sibilance. This is the infamous track which caused LFF to sit there with immense discomfort with a particular DAC. You guys should have seen this face. It was like "Dudes, don't torture me."

The intro is also a good test with microdynamics. Most DACs will sound compressed and either drop the softest sounds or compress them upward. The better DACs will have good speed and authority over the small volume changes. The guitar work should also have some body and a few thumps.


Tracy Chapman Fast Car Original CD

A otherwise good recording. Starting from the refrain "speed so fast I felt like I was a drunk.." where things kind of get busy, some DACs will fall apart and sound congested. Good DACs will maintain good separation and individualization of all instruments (guitars, voice, kick drum, bass guitar) with a notable increase in overall volume.


You guys can figure out what I'm trying to do. It's not rocket science. Just use a good set of recordings you are very familiar with. BTW, I tend not to use classical because most classical masters tend to be bandwidth limited. I hate the fact that 98% of harpsichord recordings have no bass. This is not according to my own experience with harpsichord - which I heard on an almost weekly basis for several years in college.

With amps, I start with just listening and twirling the knob.  I then move to volume matching with a DMM.  I usually start with comparing the HP outs of the BM DAC1.  Dealing with SAs can be a pain, as I would imagine sources that vary slightly in V-out.

I think Shipsupt mentioned in another thread that he uses a punk record to test if the instruments can be resolved out of a blur of sound due to the marginal recording.

Absolutely!  I use a few live tracks from 7Seconds "Scream Real Loud" when I want to see how a system resolves bass in a complex mix.  A live punk recording really is a blur of sound, but Steve Youth is a talented bass player and you can hear his clean play if your system is resolving enough... ugh, did I really just say that, so cliche, but true!  Far from an audiophile recording these are included in my test tracks.

For those that are not musically inclined, here are a couple of things I like to look for when testing out gear that I have found to be good indicators of quality gear (tone, resolution, dynamics, frequency response):

Drums -  Cymbals are by far the most difficult thing to record.  It is difficult to describe, but they should have good definition in the shimmer and do not sound like all one consistent note. Cymbals is one of the easiest ways to hear excess treble as they end up sounding very tizzy (for lack of a better word).  You should also be able to hear the rattle of the snare and get a sense of the tautness drums skins.

Guitar - The click of the pick when it hits the guitar strings is heard just slightly before the note comes out.  You can also hear the squeaking of the fingers as they move along the strings.  On some older Jazz guitar records, guys like Jim Hall would play with the amplifiers very low, so you can hear the acoustic sound of the guitar at the same time as the amplified sound.

Saxophone - The buzzing of the reed when the saxophone is overblown and the sound of blowing air when playing quietly.  Reed buzzing should be easy enough to hear on Coltrane/Rollins/Coleman/Sanders records, just listen to quiet saxophone passages and you will probably hear what I mean about playing quietly as well.  You should also be able to hear "tonguing".  Like the pick sound, it is a "te" before the note and is used to separate sounds.  Lastly, the sound of the keys opening and closing.  This one is easy enough as it sounds pretty much like typing on a keyboard.  Pretty common in quiet passages, my tests are usually if I can hear it in busier ones.

Piano - I don't have any good tracks for piano tone, but a good piano sound should carry some weight to it.  The piano is a percussive instrument (hammer attached to key hitting string) and a good recording will give you a sense of that.  This is similar to the tautness of drums.

I highly suggest anyone to go to a music store and bang on some drums or listen to someone who is.  Unless you have heard it in person it is very difficult to have a grasp of the correct sound.  Real instruments are very dynamic and can be quite harsh, especially in an enclosed space.  This is why perfect reproduction isn't the be all end all for me...it would get too annoying if you were listening to that all the time.  That being said, I think the above are good indicators of quality in the ability to accurately reproduce the sounds associated with an instrument that would be missed by someone who doesn't play or hasn't heard them in an intimate live setting.