First song you play on new gear?

What is the first song you play after an upgrade or after acquiring something new? Do you play a song you love, or a song you know will show any flaws? Do you pick something different every time? I usually play Rush or Led zeppelin, but I don't go through enough gear to have an exact routine.

Running List:

• Curtis Mayfield - Move on up
• Eagles - Hotel California (HFO)
• Daft Punk - Fragments of Time
• Norah Jones - Broken
• Techmaster P.E.B. - Computer Love
• John Williams - Main Title - Empire Strikes Back
• Diana Krall - The Girl in the Other Room
  
• Green Day - Redundant
• Duran Duran - Planet Earth (Live)
• Metallica - Orion
• Justin Timberlake - Say Something
• Chris Whitley - God Thing
• Andrea Bocelli - Champagne (Live)
• Stacey Kent - The Best Is Yet To Come
• Bruce Hornsby and the Range - On the Western Skyline
• Massive Attack - Angel
• Frank Zappa - Inca Roads
• Dire Straits - Money For Nothing
• Massive Attack - Paradise Circus
• London Grammar - Hey Now
• Florence + The Machine - Drumming Song
• Aerosmith - Walk This Way
• Bach Orgelbuchlein - Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ
• Beck - Morning
• Diana Krall - Case of You
• Doris Day - The Deadwood Stage
• Fleetwood Mac - Dreams
• David Benoit - Shibuya Station
  
• Manhattan Transfer - Ray's Rockhouse
• Keb' Mo' - Soon As I Get Paid
  
• Lylle Lovett's Large Band - Tickle Toe
  
• Overwerk - Daybreak
• Bill Evans Trio - Waltz for Debby
• Vijay Iyer - Bode & Optimism
• Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade (Living Stereo) - 1st Movement
• Sara Bareilles - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
• Nils Frahm - For - Peter - Toilet Brushes - More (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 2015)
• Jim Hall - Concierto De Aranjuez
• Peter Gabriel - Time of the Turning (Reprise)
• Anna Nalick - Breathe (2 AM)
• Peter Gabriel - Father Son
• Lady Gaga - Aura
• The Chieftains - Tears of Stone
• Chiodos - Caves
• Cowboy Junkies - Flirted With You All My Life
• Dire Straits - In The Gallery

I will add links when possible.

Disclaimer: YouTube video quality will only get you so far.

 

I always play some metal and psychedelic prog rock. I ask myself If It can't play the drums, el. guitar harmonics and vocals well, then what Can It play? Pink Floyd (fan of PF for past 3-4 years), Tool, QOTSA, classical and movie soundtracks. I used to listen to some jazz, not so much lately.

 

I play Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield. It has great dynamics, uses full spectrum of sound range, decent imaging/soundstage and uses many different instruments. Playing it immediately tells me how a piece of equipment sounds.

 

I know it is an audiophile meme, but Hotel California from Hell Freezes Over, is a go to test song for me. I also do Daft Punk's Fragments of Time, Norah Jones's Broken, Techmaster PEB's Computer Love, and any number of classical pieces depending on how I am feeling at the time. The Midnight's Gloria is moving up the lists too. Primarily, I go to these songs because I have listened to them thousands of times and still enjoy them.

 

That's funny, I love that version of the song. I've read about it being overplayed at audio expos but I've never been to one so it doesn't have any effect on me.

 

John Williams - Main Title - The Empire Strikes Back.

Not a joke.

 

The Girl in the Other Room by Diana Krall and followed up with Redundant by Green Day. Covers the bases for me.

 

Great thread idea...

Hotel California from HFO was a go to for me for a long time. When it comes to my HT / 2 channel room I am really fond of Planet Earth from the A Diamond in the Mind blu-ray. John Taylor's bass "solo" during the bridge CAN sound amazing.

 

Orion by Metallica. I’ve been using it as my opening track for a new system since high school. After that I go through a play list.

 

Like many folks I used the HFO version of Hotel California, but lately I've been using Justin Timberlake/Chris Stapleton's "Say Something"

 

I usually play the entirety of Chris Whitley's Din of Ecstasy, but this one usually tells me what I need to know:

 

Stacey Kent - The Best is yet to come (clarity and timbre), Bruce Hornsby and the Range - On the Western Skyline (sibilance), Massive Attack - Angel (bass).

 

@LetMeBeFrank can't believe this song wasn't on your list.
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - Inca Roads
I think the mastering is great on this song, and has a nice variety of sounds for gear testing. Well layered vocal harmonies, crisp drum transients, synth pad sweeps, bells, and keys, plus a bitchin' guitar solo.

 

You can go for deep bass and layering immediately. Such a Massive Attack...



Or you can go for overall sound with all kinds of transitions and layers before ending up in Dire Straits.



P.S.

These two tracks alone are usually the first options for me. "Money For Nothing" would destroy a stock HD800 with that terrible treble peak. "Angel" rattles many bad headphone drivers like boxers without footwork, the first 30 seconds will do for a knock-down.

 

@Deep Funk

That's funny, I wrote up my response below at the same time as you did yours and without seeing it

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I think you can use almost anything as long as you're intimately familiar with the material. I do however think that songs with a big dynamic range (and frequency range) will tell you more about equipment than something which just is vocals and a guitar in the 1-4kHz range.

And of course you'll want to use high-quality material too to discard the possibility of your specific recording introducing any kind of distortions or veil into the listener experience.

It's probably a cliche but I keep coming back to Money for Nothing as a good way to say check out equipment. But you'll want cd/flac/dsd or something similar. Nothing on youtube gives you the full experience really.



Then I typically want to check out something with really deep bass and very demanding separation and decay. Cue Massive Attack Paradise Circus. Again.. youtube is only a guide and won't give you the full experience.



Then I probably want to check that female vocals can maintain their upper mid-range "air" and magic since that is pretty important to me. Maybe I'll play something with London Grammar.



I use more songs but this is the general idea more or less to quickly grasp a piece of equipment. I should probably incorporate something classical into it, maybe that some of that Bruckner Muse Wanderer keeps talking about. Or Mahler..

 

Vocalists like James Brown, Florence Welch and Kate Bush really test the frequency range. The human voice truly is a unique instrument.

 

Qobuz playlist The Greatest Guitar Solos is good and I play Hotel California and Aerosmith Walk this way.
But the first is Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ from Bach Orgelbuchlein. if I can hear clearly all three voices of this fugue than I continue listening, otherwise I am not interested.

 

I will add some songs which I know are regularly used by many when testing equipment, not exactly my cup of tea but I think they're popular for a reason.







(Not sure if you intended this to be a "test tracks" thread or simply "what do you rock out to on new gear". Feel free to ignore this post if test tracks wasn't the point of this thread.)

 

Lately this has been my go-to to queue up right away. I like it for its spatial queues and playment, sense of space, liquidity, reverb length/air and bass. Heart of Drum is right after which I play for maybe 30secs to get some further ideas on bass control.



Varies a lot after that. Awhile ago I had a Test Playlist setup on Roon but can't seem to recover it. Diana Krall's Case of You is another one I like. It can sound lifeless or boring, or get you right in the feels.