Choosing Your Demo Music
You need to take several types of music when you go
hi-fi shopping, but you should only take music you like (you're going to be hearing it a lot)
and you should only take music you know.
The first thing you should take is a simple,
natural-sounding recording of your favorite type of music -- preferably a musical form you
frequently listen to in concert or in clubs. This is probably where the classical is
best rumor got its start. It doesn't really matter what the musical form is, your
familiarity with the real thing is the key.
Back when I worked on the sales floor of an audio shop, I
spent an afternoon tweaking a system in one of our showrooms. I was using the great
Reiner/CSO Scheherazade [LSC-2446] as my source. The first thing I listened for was
the position of the solo viola -- if it came from the left, I knew I had the channels
reversed. I knew the disc had an immense soundstage, so I kept adjusting the speaker
positions until I got a wide left-to-right stereo spread, and I used the apparent
front-to-back stage depth as a clue for the azimuth adjustment of the phono cartridge.
When I discovered that the CSO's double basses weren't coming across with the deep bass
impact I knew was present on the disc, I checked the speaker wiring and discovered that
one channel had the leads reversed on one speaker's woofer terminals.
I was able to use the disc to fine-tune and improve a
system that already seemed to sound okay because I knew it so well. I was working with
another salesman, Chip, and while he heard the improvement as we went along, he
didn’t get it. "I just don't listen to that music," he said. "It tells
me nothing. What I know is the sound of a guitar."
So we looked through our collection of demo discs and came
up with Dave Grisman's astonishing debut record The Dave Grisman Quintet
[Kaleidoscope F 05]. Chip sat down and listened for a minute. "It sounds like an
acoustic guitar, all right," he said. "But it just sounds like any old guitar.
I've sat in the front row at David Grisman concerts and I know that Tony Rice plays a
Martin D-28. This doesn't even sound like a Martin, much less a D-28." So it was back
to adjusting the tonearm and the cartridge loading until the specific sonic details of a
Martin D-28 popped into focus.
So you see, the key to using a reference doesn't lie in a
specific type of music but in your familiarity with it.
One nice thing about shopping these days is that CD players
don't require the same degree of precise tweaking that turntables did to sound their best,
so that part of shopping has gotten less complicated. But the lesson is the same --
unless you really know your musical example and its genre of music, you can't
really make an informed assessment of a strange system.
Try to keep it simple. A solo piano recording can tell you
a lot about a system. So can unaccompanied voice -- or any solo instrument. At some point
in every audition that I perform, I listen to some male spoken word. Radio announcers are
a good source for this, but be careful who you choose. Some announcers are fond of the
"proximity effect," which is the bass boost you get from crowding close to the
microphone. That added thickness or "chestiness" is precisely what you don't
want to hear -- it's a clue that a speaker is boomy.
What if you don't listen to acoustic instruments at all?
Don't worry, you should still use what you know.
There are certain electric instrument combinations that are
as unchanging as the sonic signatures of acoustic instruments. The Hammond DB3/Leslie
rotating-speaker combo springs immediately to mind. So does the fat, saturated sound of a
Stratocaster feeding a Marshall 100W amp or a Fender Bassman. To the educated ear of a
rock listener, these sounds are every bit as individual as the sound of a Guarneri del
Gesu is to a fiddle fanatic -- and as telling.
Go ahead and use amplified rock or R&B or reggae, if
that's what you normally listen to -- just try to choose natural-sounding recordings
rather than overly processed ones.
I tend to use a combination of both amplified and acoustic
music when I audition systems. A system that makes a solo violin sound 10’ wide is
every bit as awful as one that makes Stevie Ray Vaughan sound puny. I like to play Bob
Dylan records and see if I can understand the words. He don't make it easy, but you can
sure understand a lot more on a good system than on a poor system -- and since it's
important to me to be able to understand Dylan lyrics, it's a pertinent test.
So how do you listen to your audition material? You
need to think like a detective. Your mantra should be: What does this tell me?
Let's take a solo instrument -- the first question you must ask yourself is does
this sound like itself? Don't just listen to a violin and be satisfied that it sounds
violin-like. Does it sound like that violin? You don't need to be an instrumental
expert, but listen carefully to the instrument's sound.
Does it sound bigger and darker than a violin -- does the
system make it sound like a viola? Are the notes clearly articulated (or, if they aren't
clearly articulated on the recording, do they sound even in impact or equal in volume to
one another across the range of the instrument)?
Listen to an ensemble piece -- jazz, classical, bluegrass,
rock, the type isn't important -- and ask yourself if everybody is audible. Does the
piece, for lack of a better word, boogie? Does it have momentum, pace, rhythm? Does
it sound coordinated or does it sound disjointed? Some systems do destroy music’s
pace or swing, you know. Does the music move you?
Do the instruments sound properly proportioned? If a double
bass sounds the same size as a guitar, something's wrong. If a guitar sounds as big as an
orchestra, that isn't right either.
Don't forget to listen to the extremes, either. Whether
that means contrasting deep bass with string overtones or ranging from a boy soprano to a
full-blown jazz big band, check the limits of the types of music you enjoy.
Most of all, have fun. With a few carefully chosen records
and the right mind set, you'll come out of this experience with fantastic stereo system.
And that's a goal worth working for.
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