What's Your Go-To Record/Song for Critical Listening?

[BoomMF 1402]

Mine is Mile Davis Kind of Blue. I know that album like I know myself. I have it in multiple versions in many forms - From SACD to MFSL LP to cassette and of course FLAC and DSD for portability. When I want to audition a system or new component, that's what I fire up. As a dynamic recording, there are parts that will expose lesser quality playback devices easily enough, though not as easily as other recordings. I'm just really familiar with it, so I know what to expect and it sticks out like a sore thumb when it's not there or otherwise altered.
 
What are your favorite recordings for testing out gear or environments?

[Nightfly 61]

Just started building a collection of FLACs and rigging up a budget home set up.  I always use Donald Fagen's Nightfly or Kamakiriad to test things out. Also trying out DTS Surround on 4 equally sized speakers. Thus far Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here and Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair have been the most satisfying when I had them on quadraphonic style. 

I'm coming from years of 128k MP3s and getting back to CD quality has been enjoyable. Extra instrument layers are noticeable, and especially the reverb I'm able to pick up more and seems "new."

Crazy that with all this technological progress in the past 30 years we're struggling to get back to CD quality. I'll say that 320 kbp MP3 sounds quite good to me as well and not sure I could pick the difference between a well ripped 320 MP3 and FLAC. 

Kind of Blue is obviously a great one!

[jimmyjazz 47127]

I have hundreds of recordings I could call "illustrative", but Ray LaMontagne's "Till the Sun Turns Black" is one of the finest recordings I've ever heard.  It reveals all kinds of things about a playback system if you give it a chance.

[BoomMF 1402]

3 hours ago, Nightfly said:

Just started building a collection of FLACs and rigging up a budget home set up.  I always use Donald Fagen's Nightfly or Kamakiriad to test things out. Also trying out DTS Surround on 4 equally sized speakers. Thus far Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here and Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair have been the most satisfying when I had them on quadraphonic style. 

I'm coming from years of 128k MP3s and getting back to CD quality has been enjoyable. Extra instrument layers are noticeable, and especially the reverb I'm able to pick up more and seems "new."

Crazy that with all this technological progress in the past 30 years we're struggling to get back to CD quality. I'll say that 320 kbp MP3 sounds quite good to me as well and not sure I could pick the difference between a well ripped 320 MP3 and FLAC. 

Kind of Blue is obviously a great one!

i've been collecting MP3's since I had dial-up and Napster (Napigator for life!) and well before this $.05/GB prices for mechanicals, so I started my whole home system with MP3s. As space no longer became an issue (I currently have a redundant 16TB NAS serving up movies and music) I wish I had been more choosy with my file formats.  Now that I've transitioned to hi-res audio for the essentials and quite a few non-essentials I look at my voluminous collection of 128kbps and, cringe, below, and wonder what might have been. In my defense, though, those early dial-up lines were the pits and even a well seeded MP3 could take half a day!  A poorly supported MP3, like the infamous Egypt Egypt Download of 1999, could take weeks.

 

Now I'm laying CAT6 throughout the house and installing Popcorn Hour media players all over the place to stream content to anywhere I have a fancy.  Works very well, even the hi-res stuff.  The Popcorn Hour A-500, for example, is damn near bullet proof for off-the-wall Asian CODECs, because sometimes I get a sweet tooth for funky anime.

 

@jimmyjazz I'll have to check that out.  Always in the market for new sounds, and even though your ear doesn't seem that well tuned for overwrought 80s solid state hero guitar, your tastes otherwise are unimpeachable.

[jimmyjazz 47127]

9 hours ago, BoomMF said:

even though your ear doesn't seem that well tuned for overwrought 80s solid state hero guitar

That literally made me laugh out loud.

[noharleyyet 2864]

Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays "It's For You"