Have now installed the new Q Acoustics speakers and started to run them in.
Quality so far is light years ahead of the old Mordaunt Shorts so can't wait to get them cranked up (I will wait though...)
So, what are some good tracks to test them out properly?
I've gone for the floorstanders as I'm hoping to get away with out a sub (for a while).
I am in no way an audiophile but whenever someone shows me a new speaker set up I always play Dead Prez Hip Hop...
Release the Pressure (Leftism track one)
In the spirit of IHN's post
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/friday-bass-possibly-in-your-face/
Try the first couple of tracks on The Yellow Shark album by Frank Zappa.
One of the first song I'll always fire up is "On & On" by Erykah Badu
Diane by Therapy?
Winter (Four Seasons) - Vivaldi
Mustang Sally - The Commitments
YYZ or La Villa Strangiato.
Venga Bus by the Vengaboys, natch.
[url=
is always a good test of any system.
I use Led Zeppelin's Celebration Day live album for "oomph", and this for nuance and detail etc:
https://www.amazon.com/Young-Heart-Tony-Williams-Trio/dp/B00000D9TG
There is a song on the first Scissor Sisters album with a very strange sub-tone riff that absolutely destroys my speakers like no other track. Not sure which one of top of my head (just checked it is "can't come quickly enough"). Not an especially great track but seems to find the limits of my speakers at relatively low volumes.
Otherwise I like Red Hot chilli Peppers, "Under the Bridge" to test speaker quality across the full range.
The first few bars after the white noise of this for deep-down bass. The rest of it is forgettable
Bolivian folk music
Yes Yellow Shark is a good one as is "Ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch" if you want a more rock vibe.
Frankie's "Pleasure Dome" too but if you want to know how accurate your setup is try the BIS recording of Durufle's "Four motets on Gregorian themes". No it has nothing to do with baked goods.
Brass and female vocals for the crucial midrange.
Most dance etc tracks have heaps of bass but it isn't always that fast so my not show up the bass response. Back in Black a good one?
Something you enjoy listening to?
Thanks. Building a Spotify playlist 🙂
A couple of good'un for testing the bass. Crank it up to eleven and see if you can cause some structural damage to your house 😀
That sounds fun. Force yourself to listen to them all, right the way through 🙂
So many choices....
Radiohead - No Surprises
Bjork - Hyper Ballad
London Grammer - Hey Now
The ProdIgy - Breathe
Gregory Porter - Liquid Spirit
Loyle Carner - Ain't Nothing Changed
Massive Attack - Protection
Nick Cave - The Mercy Seat
Noname - Blaxploitation
Out on the weekend by Neil Young or the aliens ate my buick album by thomas dolby
Test your cistern while you're at it
Release the Pressure (Leftism track one)
^ this
Plus
[i]Songs to Test Headphones[/i]
Crikey - 150 songs to choose from there. Good stuff. (Except Phil Collins 😆 )
Nobody dislikes Collins more than me, but including him in a headphone test kind of makes sense - his sort of music is all about production.
As an aside, a modern day Judgment of Paris type question:
If you met Sting, Bono, and Collins but you could only punch one of them in the face which would you choose
Ed Solo - Age of Dub
Have this on 12" for just such an occasion, never felt anything quite like it on a decent system.
for something different - I found this was perfect when I bought my system many moons ago...
Philip Glass - Akhnaten
Step into a world by KRS1. Such a clean bassline and a stunning high end vocal sample. Its my go to set up test track
Lamb - In Binary (first track on Backspace Rewind)
As an aside, a modern day Judgment of Paris type question:
If you met Sting, Bono, and Collins but you could only punch one of them in the face which would you choose
I’d punch Bono in the back of the head but tell him that Phil did it. Sting is a Geordie so as soon as Collins hit Bono back, he’d jump in too. Then I’d stand back and admire my work
Your best bet is to listen to a load of stuff you're really familiar with, that will tell you if they're making a good representation of the music versus just hearing how loud they go. Posted a couple of YT links, may be to your taste or not but I find them a good test. You'll want to use decent quality streaming or preferably flac files if you can though, youtube will likely be the weakest link in your chain.
These three are a solid bass test:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/xvmhhNiGZr0
https://www.youtube.com/embed/p_pg29keUCU
https://www.youtube.com/embed/oGRxdKaW9DE
And the next two have those vocals that should sound as if they're right in front of you:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6bMC5lGLlAA
https://www.youtube.com/embed/BME88lS6aVY
Bonus filth, this just sounds like a mess on subpar speakers:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/1SEgoi7kjw8
Enjoy your new kit!
Edit: of course I didn't embed the videos properly
Edit edit: turns out trying to embed doesn't work, just posting the link does, happy days
A couple of good one in there. Thanks people.
I particularly like the Dead Prez and the David Arnold thing (you need to listen to it in it's entirity all of it).
I'd like to know which scissor sisters track it was, I prefered Abbot's version of Atmosphere and I completely got rickrolled (again). I didn't try the brown thing.
Who broke the thread posting a load of videos in one post? No one will watch them anyway! and it crashes ipads. Duh!
get a proper toy
can’t wait to get them cranked up (I will wait though…)
What are you waiting for?
When I demo'd the amp I bought recently I went with a fair bit of Pink Floyd, some Massive Attack for bass, The Ghost of Tom Joad by Springsteen for acoustic stuff and some Beth Orton (Blood Red River) for mellow female acoustic.
Thanks. Building a Spotify playlist
I see you have spotify. Here you go. 😀
There's 11 hours of everything from bass heavy songs to deep acoustic stuff, electric guitars that will make your hairs stand on end.
Everything from this
through this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYIAfiVGluk
to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRDgihVDEko
Enjoy!!!