Ten Reference Tracks for System Evaluation
A curated playlist of recordings we use to evaluate equipment in our showroom. Every track tests something specific.
When a customer visits our showroom for a demonstration, we always encourage them to bring their own music. Familiarity with a recording is more useful than any specification sheet. But we also keep a reference playlist that we reach for when we are evaluating new equipment, and every track on it tests something specific.
These are not audiophile oddities chosen for shock value. They are real records, from real artists, that happen to be recorded with care. Any of them will reveal the character of the system playing them back.
The list
The tracks
- 01
So What
Miles Davis — Kind of Blue (1959)
- 02
Hey Now
London Grammar — If You Wait (2013)
- 03
Spanish Harlem
Rebecca Pidgeon — The Raven (1994)
- 04
Take Five
The Dave Brubeck Quartet — Time Out (1959)
- 05
Keith Don't Go
Nils Lofgren — Acoustic Live (1997)
- 06
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd — Wish You Were Here (1975)
- 07
Time
Hans Zimmer — Inception OST (2010)
- 08
Flamenco Sketches
Miles Davis — Kind of Blue (1959)
- 09
Lazarus
David Bowie — Blackstar (2016)
- 10
The Boxer
Simon & Garfunkel — Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)
