Whenever I imagine a Big Musical Journey… I think the ideal start would be this
When I was a young teen, we got our first stereo. We brought it home and plugged it in and turned it on and tuned it in to a rock station. The song that was on at the time? Frankenstein by Edgar Winter.
My father told us to run because the stereo was going to explode.
I nominate Frankenstein by Edgar Winter.
Funny story: My Dad was shopping for a new stereo in the 80’s (or maybe late 70’s. It was when the first sets were allowing the option to add a CD player.) He needed tuner, speakers, the whole nine yards. He’d bring with him a CD of the 1812th Overture, with live canons. It was a VERY good recording.
He went around to the different stores, explained that he was in a brass band, and needed to be able to play high fidelity recordings of very loud music without hurting the speakers or losing sound. He then asked permission of the salesmen to test the equipment they recommended with his recording. . . and blew out speakers across Northern Virginia.
He finally found what he needed at a specialty shop, and still has the same system today.
That must have been the famous Telarc recording of the 1812. It had subsonic frequencies and was famous for blowing speakers.
Joe Satriani’s Speed of Light
If you play that song, you also have to yell “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” and then chop your buddy in the chest. Because you’re an umpteen time heavyweight champion of the world, and a limousine riding, lear jet flying, wheeling, dealing, kiss stealing son of gun. “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”
[/Ric Flair]
Otherwise, to properly baptize your speakers, you need to play, in order:
- Free Bird
- Whole Lotta Love
- Inna Gada Da Vida
- Iron Man
- Immigrant Song
- Back in Black
- Enter Sandman
- Simple Man
- Sweet Home Alabama (Original or Roll Tide version–which is the same as the original, except everytime Ronnie (or Johnny) sings “Sweet Home Alabama” you must roar “ROLL TIDE ROLL”)
- Free Bird (again. Can’t ever have to much Free Bird.)
Oak hath spoken. So mote it be.
Jessica by the Allman Brothers
La Grange by ZZ Top. Very, very loud.
Propellerheads do this awesome rendition of the classic James Bond theme that does some great stuff with different tracks & channels. I highly recommend it.
Camille Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 in c minor, Op. 78 (Organ), last movement (“maestoso”). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4U0y8zZm28&fmt=18
With a good digital recording, the entrance of the horns (at 1:18 in this version) is particularly impressive.
Good choice. I’d also play Addicted To Love, Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress, and Bohemian Rhapsody. Then an entire album of Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Derek & the Dominos. Layla.
I always find “Private Investigations” by Dire Straits is a good start. I like its subtlety and dynamics.
One of my lifetime topten albums, the Holly Cole Trio’s Temptation, has a reputation among audiophiles and high-end audio dealers as a good way to demonstrate a system’s capabilities. Track two, “Train Song,” has about the best possible combination of silence to high volume, low to high frequencies, etc. It’s included on more than one industry demo disc.
I use the song “Synergy” by Fingathing to test out setups. It starts slowly/boringly so it needs a little time. It’s sonically dense yet sometimes subtle - it’s the song I’ve most noticed being utterly horrible with a crappy setup vs very satisfying with a good setup. But you’d have to know what it sounds like on an accurate, high quality output system to understand what you’re listening for, so it’s not very useful unless you have a known good reference. It’s nearly unlistenable on any setup I have except soundcard+HD280 on my end. Right now I’m stuck with onboard sound since my sound card died at the song sounds like ass.
Edit: Incidentally, if you’re getting the test songs in MP3 form, you’re going to want a high bit rate mp3 (I’d recommend at least 224kbps average vbr) since if the setup is any good you’ll hear the compression artifacts.
Incidentally, I mostly disagree.
It’s easy to scoff at audiophile ideas since they can often be idiots (expensive speaker cable, etc.) but break in has a plausible mechanism of action, since we’re talking about moving parts which wear on each other somewhat. This doesn’t necesarily mean that you need a burn in procedure where you do anything differently - the parts will tend to wear in on their own eventually as you play them.
How much break in seems to benefit any particular piece of hardware seems to vary though, with some designs not noticibly changing and some changing significantly. I recently broke in a pair of Klipsch S4 in-ear monitors which had an unpleasant sound with some sibilance at first, but after a few days of burn-in settled down quite a bit.
Marquee Moon by Television
Ella Fitzgerald singing Honeysuckle Rose with the Count Basie Orchestra.
Journey of the Sorcerer by The Eagles, definitely.
Otherwise, Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.
ZZ Top - Pincushion. Nothing like gut-busting guitar to loosen those suckers up.