need best song for audition

[curtis]

Curtis - is that Chesky disk just a plain old CD (I don't currently have a universal player)?

Yep....it will work in any CD player.

[audibleconnoisseur]

I came across one that we have in our collection that would cover most of what I wanted... a solid male vocal, solid female vocal (more opratic) and plenty of scaling, quality peaks and smooth lows:

Josh Groban and Charlotte Church - The Prayer

[will95]

Let me second Curtis' recommendation on the Chesky Ultimate Demonstration Disk:

http://www.chesky.com/core/details.c...095&category=1

I recently purchased and used this CD as my primary speaker evaluation tool and found it to be invaluble. It has a great mix of female and male vocals and instrumentals including a drum solo at the end. It is a high quality recording that puts on one CD tracks that are specifically targeted at testing different sonic attributes in speakers and electronics (amplifiers). Given that this was my first time critically listening to new speakers in many years, this CD helped to heighten my awareness of what to listen for and contributed to a consistent evaluation process.

I would recommend that you use the Chesky CD in conjunction with some of your own personal music CD and DVD favorites. For this I used James Taylor (Live) and Norah Jones for additional vocal testing; and Top Gun and War of the Worlds for DVD sound track testing. I also purchased a Ray Charles Surround Sound DVD (Monster Music) as I did not have any surround music to test out 5.1 configurations. This surround music DVD proved useful for my surround music testing. In addition to Ray Charles' signature voice, this DVD has him singing duets with many famous female and male vocalists (Norah Jones, Elton John, Diana Krall, Van Morrison, James Taylor, and others).


--Michael