What album would be good to test out my new stereo setup?

Just installed a new receiver and want recommendations of albums you'd use to test out the sound quality of a system.

I tried playing Goldfrapp Seventh Tree and it sounded pretty amazing. What else would be good?

used to be "dark side" when i was a kid..

I was considering pumping out some "Moving Pictures" action later on...

Here's another question:
Should I expect any sound quality difference between playing CDs on a deck connected with an optical cable vs. an RCA cable? This whole digital dealy is kind of new to me, so I don't know what to expect...

White Light/White Heat.

but on the real, I'd say some Aphex Twin maybe?

Is electronic music good for testing out a stereo? Or does the digital clarity cause stereos to sound better than they really are? Do you have to play something dirtier to get the true sense of how well it is being processed by your speakers?

I don't know the answer here, just thinking out loud...

Oh I don't either. I'm trying to think of impeccable production. Try "Under Construction" by Missy, that might be fun!

tusk

The correct answer to this question would always be "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagan (on vinyl)

i always grab Mouse on Mars' Autoditacker and Low's The Curtain Hits the Cast

don't know about 'testing out' i'm no audiphile but the first play on my newish stereo was definitely important - kind of a bonding process ! it was the national's boxer, i knew it would be before i even bought the stereo cause i just liked the way it sounded so much at the time. i was seriously looking forward to & imagining that first spin while i shopped around

on that note, the stereo guy told me speakers 'wear in' and get better with age. is this true or bollocks? I can't tell any difference about a year on. but it's nice to 'think' they sound better

Oooooh!!! Autoditacker would be SUPREME

and I've heard a lot of talk about wearing in speakers but never knew if it was horseshit or not

Dire Straits Love Over Gold is the go-to test for one audiogeek I know.

All audio equipment breaks in, but simultaneously your ears are adjusting to the sound of your new equipment, so it's pretty hard to test for. You'd have to have a brand new system and a year-old system (identical in every other way) side by side for instantaneous A/B testing in order to figure anything out.

I recently purchased a new stereo system and I recall 'Shed - Shedding the past' sounded particulary good.

zaireeka

Rolling Stones- Between the Buttons, as long as it's the remastered version.

Should I expect any sound quality difference between playing CDs on a deck connected with an optical cable vs. an RCA cable? This whole digital dealy is kind of new to me, so I don't know what to expect...

Depends on what you've got. If you have a new receiver or pre-amp, and the CD player is old, then the DAC would likely be better in the receiver. So you'd want to use the optical cable. I'm in that situation, except that my 1993 Sony doesn't have optical output. I'm planning to upgrade to a Rotel at some point. If you have a newish, good quality player, then you should be fine with the analog RCA outputs. If you don't like the DAC of either piece, you can buy a separate one, like the PS Audio DLIII or Benchmark DAC1.

Care to geek out on the gear and tell us what you got?

It's actually all oldish equipment, my speakers are between 30 and 40 years old and the CD player is about 15 years old. The "new" portion of the stereo is the receiver that my brother gave me - it is only about 10 years old. Still, my old receiver must have been more crapped out than I realized because everything sounds much clearer now.

Phil Collins or Steely Dan obv.

I'm surprised how many people have recommended classic albums from the "hi-fi" era. Not that that's a bad thing. The 70s certainly were a golden age for audio quality. Now you have songs with a million tracks layered on top of each other, but maybe the overall sound ain't so hot.

The Tuss Confederation Trough
Clark Body Riddle
Autechre Untilted (try pro radii)
Lambchop Is a Woman
R/S ONE SNOW MUD RAIN

Back in Black

this is stupid

it should be an album that you know REALLY well, so that your ear can pick out difference between what you're hearing and what you've heard before!

some good suggestions in this unsearchable thread i started a while back

POX: Music to celebrate your HiFi/HeadFi investment

xp

I HAVE OWNED LOVELESS FOR 5 YEARS AND I JUST REALIZED THERE ARE DRUMS ON "TO HERE KNOWS WHEN." WHAT THE FUCK.

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Friday, November 3, 2006 4:03 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

what dya think that big rumble was

One new reality that I am slowly learning to face is that I maybe need to listen to the iPod less and go back to more CDs and vinyl. I didn't really notice the difference before, but now it's rather glaring.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51woCWmhJbL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

http://www.musicimport.us/images/sdimages/disk9/1045787.jpg

paul's booooooooutique

Chronic 2001 starts out with that THX effect.

If your receiver's that old, does it really have an optical input anyway? Seems unlikely. Even if it did have some early version, I'd still go with the new CD player's Digital Analog Converter (DAC) and let it process the bits before sending the music to the receiver as an analog signal through the RCA jacks. Good digital/analog conversion has gotten a lot more common (and cheaper) than it was in 1993. Unless you've got a world-beating system from 1993 and a chintzy $80 Goldstar CD Player from 2008, of course.

And yes, always listen to recordings you know well before moving on to spectacular stuff. You should hear things you haven't before, with the side benefit that it'll get you excited about listening to your collection again.

It may be slightly newer than 10 years old, but not much... Definitely has an optical input though. But the CD player is ancient. I actually have my TV hooked up to the receiver through the optical in. So anything I play on my DVD player actually goes through there, which means that I could potentially play CDs on my DVD deck, but I'd have to have the TV switched on.

two more suggestions, after this afternoon: Kraftwerk's Computer World and any of the Bob Ludwig-remastered Roxy Music cds.

Ah yes, also Dungen's 4 has a couple of tracks that sound sweet on a good stereo system.

As always it's Spiritualized's Lazer Guided Melodies