How do you audition and test new speakers and equipment?

DonnerUndBlitzen

Besides doing side by side comparisons, how do you test new speakers and equipment? What are some of your test recordings? What are some of your test criteria?

Here are some of my critical listening tests:

The mantra for people watching BD and DVDs often is, “I can’t hear the dialogue.” Classical music may be even worse than movie soundtrack dialogue. “Pianoforte” was the original name for the modern piano. It means: soft and loud. Classical Music is filled with both soft and loud passages. The music is very dynamic. For orchestral music, two of the worst offenders are the symphonies by Tchaikovsky and Anton Bruckner.

Bruckner is almost neurotic in the sudden, dynamic swings from piano to forte. Last summer I bought Polk Audio RTI A3s and I listened to Daniel Barenboim/Bruckner/Chicago Symphony and Georg Solti/Bruckner/Chicago Symphony. With the A3s, I could hear the quiet passages without turning up the volume. Then when the sudden loud passages sprang, the volume was not too high! The A3s are very detailed, but they are champs with piano forte.

Besides testing for piano forte, detail is also important. I listened to the three opus 59 “Razumovsky” string quartets by Beethoven. The string quartet consists of 2 violins, a viola and a cello. It is easy to distinguish the violins and viola (the “upper strings”) from the cello (part of the “lower strings”) but it is more difficult to distinguish the violin from the viola. With the A3s I found myself saying “that’s a viola!” numerous times. The viola was distinguishable from the violin.

The composer Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade is another great recording for testing new stereo equipment. It has everything in it. It has great dynamic swings, numerous instrumental solos, slower andante passages as well as fast temp allegros. (I like Fritz Reiner/Chicago Symphony, or Riccardo Muti). Some equipment and speakers may do well with solo instruments like the piano, but trip over themselves when the sound stage gets filled and busy with a large orchestra.

I also like to listen to familiar music to see if my new equipment reveals anything new from what is old to me. The Beatles Sgt Pepper, White Album, and Revolver have all kinds of different instruments (including the Sitar) and sounds going on in them. I also Test for male and female voices. I like Randy Travis’ “Full Circle” and “Always and Forever.” Vince Gil is also a good candidate for male vocals. For female vocals, lately I’ve been listening to Ann Hampton Callaway and Patty Loveless.

On Spotify, I recently discovered “The Chieftains.” They are an Irish folk band. If you want to test for sibilance and harsh treble sounds in your tweeters or amps, The Chieftains are the ticket. The music is not only overloaded with treble, it has very fast treble passages. Their recording are very well done.

So, how do you test new equipment?

mhardy6647

Short answer for now.

I think that the piano (pianoforte, indeed!) is perhaps the single hardest thing for a loudspeaker to get right -- to reproduce in a way that actually sounds like a piano. The Quad ESL-57s achieve real-sounding piano reproduction, as do the Altec Duplexes (IMO). Very (!) few other loudspeakers do.

Some get the tone fairly right, but not the scale ("size").

The other key tool for me is the human voice. Our hearing has evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to the human voice & to nuance in human vocalization. Best for me is a small group (say three to five) voices in harmony or unison. I like to see if I can listen for individual voices in a small group -- to me, that's a key test of the "resolving power" of a loudspeaker. This is a little different, I'd opine, than what some folks call "detail". To me, one'll know it when one hears it

I am particularly keen on the Wailin Jennys -- beautiful voices, beautiful and technically high quality harmonies, and very well recorded, too. Try their album Live at Mauch Chunk Theatre and I think you'll see what it means.

Here's a Youtube-grade (audio) example (one of the first tracks I like to try for an evaluation):

https://youtu.be/rdT58JW1yF8

soundfreak1

It's pretty simple in that I install the new piece of equip and listen to it for at least a week or two or until my ears get familiar with the "new sound" ( it may be subtle, it may be dramatic, maybe in the middle.) Either way once your ears are used to the sound go back to the old piece of equip and listen again to the difference (another week) and make a determination as to what you like of the new vs the old. Yes it takes time but we are talking about making changes (good or bad) in your system. The hard part (for me) is to remember that "senergy" has a lot to do with the results. This is why I no longer (for quite a while) do a/b comparisons as they don't allow for the details to be explored. First impressions are just that an impression not an evaluation! So patience is important! As far as music used for this evaluation, it should be something that represents the full scale of music that you are intimately familiar with so you can hopefully recognize any differences.

bikezappa

I like to play the last movements of both Mahler's second and fourth symphonies.

recoveryone

its a crap shoot, with the lost of audio listening room at stores (most were bias toward what they wanted to push off on the customer) and the fact we buy more of our gear online you have to trust your research. Sometimes you just have to have some faith and hope for the best. I think more today we rely on brand loyalty and pass performance of a brand to help us make those decisions.

Nightfall

recoveryone wrote:

Sometimes you just have to have some faith and hope for the best.

That's pretty much how I've been doing it. As long as you buy used you don't come out on the losing end if the piece is not for you.

Ricardo

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Short answer for now.

I think that the piano (pianoforte, indeed!) is perhaps the single hardest thing for a loudspeaker to get right -- to reproduce in a way that actually sounds like a piano. The Quad ESL-57s achieve real-sounding piano reproduction, as do the Altec Duplexes (IMO). Very (!) few other loudspeakers do.

Some get the tone fairly right, but not the scale ("size").

The other key tool for me is the human voice. Our hearing has evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to the human voice & to nuance in human vocalization. Best for me is a small group (say three to five) voices in harmony or unison. I like to see if I can listen for individual voices in a small group -- to me, that's a key test of the "resolving power" of a loudspeaker. This is a little different, I'd opine, than what some folks call "detail". To me, one'll know it when one hears it

I am particularly keen on the Wailin Jennys -- beautiful voices, beautiful and technically high quality harmonies, and very well recorded, too. Try their album Live at Mauch Chunk Theatre and I think you'll see what it means.

Here's a Youtube-grade (audio) example (one of the first tracks I like to try for an evaluation):

https://youtu.be/rdT58JW1yF8

Thanks for introducing me to The Waylin Jennys!!! Beautiful.

Willow

I'm waiting for lightman to say in his tighty whities

mhardy6647

Willow wrote: »

I'm waiting for lightman to say in his tighty whities

You've gotta admit, that's better than in sombody else's.

lightman1

Willow wrote: »

I'm waiting for lightman to say in his tighty whities

Boxer briefs, scooter.

txcoastal1

lightman1 wrote: »

Willow wrote: »

I'm waiting for lightman to say in his tighty whities

Boxer briefs, scooter.