Thanks to Newegg and their absurd Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Please Buy Tuesday, we’re making some major improvements to the entertainment systems. Both the parlour (music) and the den (movies) are getting shiny new speaker systems.
The parlour is easy—it’s quick and easy to switch between things. Dark Side of the Moon, Take Five (and Unsquare Dance), and Cornell '77 lead off, followed by a range of classical pieces that depend more on mood than benchmarkiness.
I don’t really have a reference disc for audio, but I have several Blu-rays that I use to adjust the settings on my projector. Watchmen and The Dark Knight are good for getting black levels how I want them. I, Robot is good for adjusting how amount of Red the picture has.
3:10 to Yuma was one of the first 7.1 blurays (not that I’ve bothered to put in the back 2 speakers. Even if you still have a 5.1 setup, there are two fantastic scenes - one is a shootout that makes excellent use of the surround space, and when the train finally arrives at the end - they pulled out all the stops on that one.
Baraka would be good for video. I have Planet Earth, which is also fantastic. But honestly, I just need to borrow someone’s bluray reference disc and get it over with - my levels are off, and going from source to source just screws me up.
For surround DVD’s, I use The Right Stuff. There’s a scene near the beginning where jets fly over your head from front to back.
Audio CD’s, a London Records recording of Chopin waltzes by Zolton Kochis, recorded in the late '80’s, my definitive classical piano recorded sound.
Also, Who’s Next by the Who. Not the greatest recording, but I’ve been listening to it in various formats since it was released. The sound is in my bones.
Pick recordings that you KNOW, inside and out, that you feel.
For CDs it is important not only to have something you are familiar with, but something that has been mastered and mixed well. There are a lot of CDs out there that are so poorly recorded that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from $50 speakers and $1000 speakers listening to them. Dave Matthews isn’t everyones cup of tea, but his CDs are always excellently mastered. Although, my personal demo disk is Sarah McLachlan’s album Solace.
For a DVD/BluRay demo you need something with good picture, low bass, and good use of surround speakers to demo a system properly. In terms of these qualities, Avatar is probably one of the better demo movies out there, wish the story was a little better. Just about all the Pixar movies fit the bill as well, and have good universal appear. Master and Commander:The Far Side of the World is one of my top picks for an under appreciated movie that is top demo material.
I purchased this for calibration when we got our first HD TV. It is geekdom to the Nth power.
I also went to the discussion page for our model (I’m sure every brand now has a discussion forum) and chatted with all of the other geeks about what their favorite settings were for that model.
The DVD of Independence Day is fun for checking out that low rumble of the big “motherships” parked over major cities. We had an LD version in our last apartment, and it would make the glassware clink together in the nearby cabinet during those scenes.
The two test DVDs linked look great. The den receiver has the Audyssey self-calibration, but there are lots of little tweaks here and there (direction, sub placement, etc.). The second looks like it has test tones for the speakers, which will help with those. I have a pressure meter, so I’ll be able to fine-tune as necessary. Though actually, I think a great calibration DVD would simply have various sounds coming out of the speakers—* this is a normal conversational voice coming out of left front…this is a whisper coming from the rear right surround…this is a lawnmower from the centre channel…* That sort of thing. If I can hear the whisper from one speaker and a shout from another, then I know it’s good and tuned enough to provide that sort of detail.
There are some great movies here—our Netflix queue is getting reordered. We’re also adding Run Lola Run to the mix. Some of the re-watches should be fun. Can’t wait to hear the ID4 ships or the Right Stuff launces come through without overtaxing the sub into mud (as so much sci-fi does). We’ve been thinking about Yuma for a while, and it’ll be a great surround test.
Taking the advice to go with well-engineered and familiarity for the parlour, I let Cornell ’77[sup][/sup] fill the air last night. It was fantastically detailed and deep. The great thing about the parlour set-up is it sounds * loud—loud where you can easily hear fingers on strings and the subtlest cymbal ride … yet you can also hold a normal conversation at the same time. It also goes dB-loud. The Phil-bomb at the beginning of Scarlet Begonias came through crystal clear and physically pervasive—and his bass stayed that way throughout. Excellent definition and nothing muddy at all.
[sup]*A lossless (SHN) Betty Board of the show. Here’s an archive.org link to the show. Take a listen, it’s well worth it.[/sup]
I use Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to make sure my surround sound is set up correctly. There’s a lot of left and right going on there. Plus, I can sit back and listen to that album all the way through any day!
I remember I bought Monsters Inc. on DVD for some sort of testing reason. Maybe it was when I got my first decent video card? I think it was just a bright, crisp movie that I wanted to see and it had just come out on DVD so there it was.