The eagle-eyed among you will realise we’ve slipped in an bonus album on this Top 5 list (making it a total of 6). We’ve bent our own rules to make sure we include a variety of great albums to really test a Hi-Fi. Like all Top 5 lists, this one is a personal recommendation, but nevertheless a good place to start…
An often overlooked part of testing out any piece of equipment is the source material. Sure, the speakers might have an incredibly deep frequency range but what good is that if the bass is uncontrolled and flabbier than a walrus? You won’t know this unless you give those speakers something suitably bass-heavy to play with. Likewise if you listen to a lot of orchestral music, you want equipment that is comfortable in separating the various instruments and delivering that sense of scale rather than just giving a flat, dull representation of a room that happens to have several musicians in it. Naturally, everyone wants a good all round sound, and things such as bass, middle and treble or scale, timing and depth, are not mutually exclusive from each other, but certain genres tend to lend themselves more to certain requirements than others. With this in mind, here are some recommendations as to what demo material to use for your next trial of Hi-Fi equipment.
To be fair, you could pick any of Muse’s albums and you’d have a wealth of material to choose from to put a piece of Hi-Fi through its paces. However, their fifth studio album The Resistance shows a band at its peak with an ambitious and wonderfully produced record that ticks a lot of boxes in terms of what we want a piece of Hi-Fi to be able to reproduce. Whether it’s the punchy drums of Uprising or the epic final third of the album (The orchestral Exogenesis portion which was released as a separate EP) it’s rock music that hasn’t been this epic since Queen.
- Look out for…
The plucked string intro melody and the bass drop just before the last chorus in Undisclosed Desires.
Apart from the obvious organic and imperfect nature of a live performance, you need to be able to demonstrate the atmosphere of the event without losing the quality of the sound production. If you ever want to get back in touch with what a live performance sounds like from the comfort of your room, you’ll be hard pushed to find a live album that makes you feel more like the artist is in the room with you better than Eric Clapton’s Unplugged MTV performance. Right from the opening instrumental Signe, the pleasure of real instruments being played by real people is immediately apparent. Filled with soul, the album feels tender in its quiet moments and richly layered in its more involving pieces.
- Look out for…
Pick your favourite instrument and listen to how “real” it sounds.
Justin Timberlake – FutureSex / LoveSounds
Modern R&B music invariably uses a lot of production in order to create its signature sound of infectious grooves and catchy melodies, and Justin Timberlake’s second album is no exception. Featuring many eclectic and varied ideas, it utilises a lot of vocal work to create not only harmonies, but melodies and percussive elements too. This, combined with the excellently weighted balance between synthesized and real instruments, creates a hugely tricky and involving soundtrack for your Hi-Fi to deal with.
- Look out for…
The depth of bass in My Love and the timing of the vocal based percussion track.
Unless you’re only going to be listening to modern music, it’s worth sticking on something that’s been around a while in order to understand whether the equipment you’re listening to is going to be forgiving of music that wasn’t recorded with today’s modern hi-tech gear. Rumours manages to wonderfully bridge the gap between today’s production-heavy artists and past decades more traditional recording techniques.
- Look out for…
The subtle percussion in Dreams and the organ in The Chain.
The Bristol based group released their third studio album in 1998 after an intense and stressful recording and production process. The result however was an atmospheric, ethereal and darkly ambient album. Utilising several subtle layers of loops and building crescendos, Mezzanine is an excellent album for discovering a Hi-Fi system’s sense of reach and scale.
- Look out for…
The low, low bass line of Angel.
Andre Previn – Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky
You can’t truly test out a Hi-Fi system’s control and dynamic range without a full orchestral score and what better piece than the soundtrack to the ballet Swan Lake. It deftly tiptoes (haha!) between the exquisitely light and roaring crescendos, all the while managing to stir your emotions even if you’ve never seen a performance of it.
- Look out for…
When the epic main theme kicks in.
However effective I’ve found these albums to be, they are just suggestions and there are a wealth of individual songs that aren’t mentioned here that do well to show off (or show up) a Hi-Fi system. It’s also worth bearing in mind that you make sure to listen to the kind of music that you will be listening to at home. Equipment may sound fantastic with one track and not so good with another, so it’s important that you try as much variety as possible before deciding what to purchase. A great idea is to make a mix album of all your favourite tracks with a wide and varied production and instrumentation so that you can be sure that you’ve explored all of a system’s capabilities. Ultimately, your ears are the best judges, so don’t be afraid to use them!
Author – Steve, Bristol store.
