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Eagles, "Hell Freezes Over." This disc still rocks and sounds absolutely fantastic!
When your pals come over to hear your audio system, what do you pull out to impress them?
Until I have a system that doesn't look like one of the skeletons from "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad," I don't do demos. That said, when I do make my first step toward audio insanity, here are some songs I would definitely harass my friends with: 1) The Faces, "Miss Judy's Farm," because mud is beautiful; 2) John Adams, "The Chairman Dances" (with Rattle/CBSO), for orchestral sweep; and 3) Mouse on Mars, "Bib," because the bass on this track destroyed my old bookshelf speakers. So what stops a new sonic ranger from "demoing" every recording he has ever owned? (I am assuming that the "demoing" experience is different for women audiophiles.)
I use tracks from several discs. But I'm sure I'm not the only one. No one CD can really test a system. I use the score from Peacemaker. The lows come fast hard. It separates the sub-woofers from the sub-whiners. For the upper octaves my favorite tracks come from Phantom of the Opera. There are others but those 2 are my favorites.
I try to pull something they think they are familiar with, or at least in the same genre they like. Lately I've used Iona's "The Book of Kells" (Celtic), the Sony Gold pressing of Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," the Polka and Fugue from Weinberger's "Schwanda the Bagpiper" from an HDCD Reference Recording, and the "Exsultate Jubilate" section from Cece Bartoli's Mozart CD. (Different folks I have over like different types of music. They respond better if they hear something they like already.)
Leni Stern, "Ten Songs," Lipstick Records, 1991. This is a fabulous disc from the wife of "Captain Fingers" Mike Stern. The band is Mike's, circa '91, with some really fine players: Dennis Chambers, Lincoln Goines, Rodney Holmes, Wayne Krantz, Alain Caron, and more. Use of the tabla, bells, and a furious doubletime samba played by Chambers demands the most from a system. A really good recording that, on a good system, will absolutely ignite you. See lenistern.com for more info on this overlooked player in the likes of Emily Remler.
I recently acquired an HDCD player and a fistful of HDCDs. The sound from Reference Recordings and Opus3 HDCD demo discs is by far the best digital I've experienced at home. These will become my demo-disc standards. Finally, sound that begins to rival the analog rig. (Hmmm . . . time for a cartridge upgrade, I think.)