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What is your "reference" recording?

Depends on my mood.
Vinyl:
Mel Torme swings Schubert alley - Japanese vinyl pressing. Recorded in 1960.
Mahler's 2nd - Oszawa/BSO Telarc DMM mastered - Early '80s
Metallica - Master of Puppets - 45 RPM MoFi pressing.
Telarc-Round-Up - Kunzel/Cincinatti Pops
Alison Krauss & Union Station - Live Mofi pressing

CD, DVD, DVD-A or SACD:
Opeth - Heritage (Vinyl's not much better than the CD, unfortunately)
Beck - Sea Change
Alison Krauss & Union Station - Live
Saint Saens Organ Symphony (3rd) - Munch - Living Stereo SACD
Berlioz Requiem
 
Alan Parsons Project - I Robot (DVD-A)
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (Toshiba non-TO Black Triangle Mastering)

If these two albums don't sound right, nothing else will.
 
Plus one on the Eagles "Hell Freezes Over" cd. Especially the song "Hotel California" performed live by them. The base goes incredibly low.
 
Another call for "Hell freezes Over". I also can recommend a series of CDs called "The Sound of Steel and Wood". The recording on this album is a clean as it gets and the collection of guitar instrumentals on the three CDs is a great mix of known talent and artists you have never heard before. Great stuff.
 
Porcupine tree- in absentia. Very great sounding and well recorded album. I have it on vinyl and cd. I also like to play a song by No-man called "animal ghost".
 
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Many already mentioned...expecially Steely Dan's Gaucho and Dire Straits Love Over Gold.

A recent discovery is Sade Greatest Hits. Especially the song "Is It a Crime"....that song is excellent for soundstage, imaging, and dynamics. I see this CD used for less than $5 all the time. Next time you're pokin' around used CD bins look for it and grab it.

Black Crows War Paint is a pretty good one too. Not your pop-ish radio friendly Black Crowes here...it's heavily steeped in American roots music and has some outstanding songwriting and the recording quality is top notch.
 
My go-to is R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People - usually starting with the last track, Find the River, which has a lot of different instruments, lots of layers, but still manages to be pretty transparent and wasn't over-processed in the studio.
 
Amanda McBroom - "The Rose"
Dire Straits - "Private Investigations"
Eva Cassidy - "Waly Waly"
Berlioz - "Symphonie Fantastique" on Reference Recordings
Mahler -"9th Symphony" on EMI
Saint - Saens - "Symphony No. 3 "Organ" Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra, Michael Murray, Organ, Telarc CD80051

And, yeah, Joni Mitchell - "Court And Spark" is a fantastic recording, I probably will use it as well from now on.
 
gregswaim said:
Yes ~ Yours Is No Disgrace
Yes ~ Starship Trooper
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you about YES as the high-fi tester. When nobody else is in the house I will run the new speakers through Heart Of The Sunrise, Roundabout, and Perpetual Change to see if they cut the mustard.
But, firstly, I fall back on an older recording which was the first high-fi sampler I ever heard and continue to love it... the first instrumental bit of the Chicago Transit Authority's recording of I'm A Man. That tests the whole range in a few seconds of play.
 
There are many recordings that come to mind. It all depends on what I am auditioning. I prefer high quality vinyl, most notably half-speed masters from companies like Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Nautilus Superdisc, Direct Disk Labs, and the like. Here are a few that I typically tote around (every one is half-speed mastered):

Judy Collins: Judith (Direct Disc Labs)
Heart: Dreamboat Annie (Nautilus Superdisc)
Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water (CBS Master Sound)
Beck: Sea Change (MFSL)
Modern Jazz Quartet: Live At The Lighthouse (MFSL)
Billy Joel: 52nd Street (CBS Master Sound)
Rush: Permanent Waves (MFSL)
Art Pepper: ...The Way It Was! (MFSL)
The Cars: The Cars (MFSL)
Foreigner: Foreigner (MFSL)
Madeleine Peyroux: Careless Love (MFSL)
Pink Floyd: Dark Side Of The Moon (MFSL)
Alan Parsons Project: I Robot (MFSL)

I have many more high fidelity records, but typically, these albums either showcase the best, or the worst, of a system, especially the Madeleine Peyroux album. Hell, it even showcases flaws in my own system-which is why there will be some equipment cycling very soon..... :D


-Jason
 
Linda Ronstadt "what's new"
Michael Jackson "Bad"
Bob James 4 "Westchester Lady" in particular.
Santana "Borbolleta"
Eagles "Hell Freezes Over" dts "....and for the record we were on a 14 year vacation..."
Marvin Gaye "Collection" DVD-audio
Pink Floyd, without question "Time"

Sorry if I didn't get the Eagles quote exactly right.
 
When evaluating purchasing some piece of gear, I bring a recording that I know well and has impressive dynamic range, which helps me evaluating the gear in question. This recording is no reference in the sense of being one of the best sounding ever (although it is a very good sounding one, like most Telarc recordings), but it is a standard for me:

513vfE8L-iL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
 
Since I picked up a Marantz SA8004 SACD player a while back, my reference redbook
CD has been Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Greatest Hits. There are a few different CDs around with this same title but this version was released by MCA (USA) in 1993 under Catalog Number 10813. It contains 18 songs. Highly recommended...for reference purposes or for just plain good listening.
 
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