 What album do I use for testing and how do I do the listening test? These questions come along almost every week, so it's about time I gave a proper answer. But before I give you the titles, we must first discuss how you evaluate the sound quality of a stereo setup. Let's start with the environment where you do the listening test. If that's a dealer's showroom, make sure he connects all components of the setup directly to each other. Consumers that use a switching panel should be avoided, certainly when you spend more than 1000 euros. Lower price setups also work better when the components are connected directly but the question is whether it's fair to demand that much effort from a dealer, especially if you go shopping at busy hours. In all cases you better take half a day off and visit the shop when there is little shop traffic. You could consult the dealer and even make an appointment. Then ask the dealer if he could suggest a stereo setup just below the money you intend to spend. Listen to that setup for a longer time, half an hour would be great. Then go listen to a possible combination that does fit your budget, using the tactics I will describe later on. Unfortunately not everyone is able to visit the dealer. Judging equipment in your own environment is of course better provided you place the loudspeakers properly. Watch my video loudspeaker placement for my two step approach. This is enormously important for proper adjustment. When all is set up, start listening to music you normally play, do not use so called test records or those tracks you hear on shows. Those are chosen for they easily sound convincing on shows, not because they are a good testing material. Just play your usual music. Don't start evaluating the setup, just enjoy the music. It's good practice to read a book while the music is playing or, that's what I do, play a game of solitaire on your tablets. The thought behind that is simple. When your brain is busy reading a book or playing a game, it will hear the music as background function. Like a Google speaker it listens but it doesn't analyze. Only when something unexpected happens, or in case of a Google speaker their magic phrase, the audio information is analyzed. This is a good way of discovering nasties. If you want to know if a component is better than another, let's say two network players, don't switch from one to the other and back too quickly. Start a track, listen to it for at least some minutes on the first player, then do the same on the second player, using the same track from the start. When judging amplifiers or loudspeakers you can't switch back and forth easily so here it's obvious to listen for a longer period to the first, switch over to the second and listen to the same music for about the same period. It might help to take a notebook, analog or digital, that doesn't matter, and write down your observations. Never use the same limited set of albums for judgement. If you do, you might end up with equipment that does that set of albums very well but sounds far less on other albums. I've said it already earlier, don't use the tracks you hear in every shop and on every Hi-Fi show. Take 5 by Dave Bruberg Quartet, Tin Pan Alley by Stevie Ray Vaughan, famous Blue Raincoat by Jennifer Warnes and so on. And tracks that have only a few instruments are rather simple to reproduce and will sound very open. A popular example never let me go by Keith Jarrett on standards volume 2. Very fine music, very good recording but not too difficult to reproduce. Want a track that really is difficult to reproduce? Take El Tango de Roxanne from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. That is a very complex mix that most likely sounds horrible on your stereo, so you are warned. Do you know the expression can't see the trees from the wood? That's what this track might do to your stereo. But believe me, if all goes well, it's an impressive piece of music. Recordings are made using loudspeakers, called monitors or monitor speakers. Floyd E. Tool has done extensive research on the sound characteristics of studio monitors to conclude that their tonal balance varied considerably. As a result, the tonal balance of recordings, that will be the inverse of the tonal balance of the studio monitors, also very considerable. Since loudspeaker manufacturers use records to voice their consumer speakers, they also will have the inverse tonal balance of the record. Tool even wrote that he can guesstimate the period of the album was recorded by tonal balance. Although there are people that still believe the sound quality can be judged for measurements, this example makes clear that things are a lot more complex. But it is less dramatic than it seems. Remember that each and every concert hall has its own tonal balance in the concert hall and a separate one on stage. Rock concerts use amplification that influences the tonal balance as does the sound engineer that does the mix. Still, you can enjoy music in all those venues. To explain why, I must explain to you how we consume music using the 3 H's. Hips, Heart and Head. Hips stand for a music that makes you move automatically. That can be for instance dance music, Vienna Waltz's or mariachi music, depending on who you are and where you come from. Strong rhythmic clues and heavy bass help here, but so does good pace and rhythm properties of your stereo. There are audio components that, due to time smearing and group delay, distort time information. A good track to test this is Diamonds on the Souls of a Shoes by Paul Simon on Graceland. On some stereos it sounds like if musicians consumed considerable amounts of illegal tranquilizers, while on other equipment they sound almost if they were on speed. The heart stands for emotion. That can be a sad tune or a happy one, but it can also be a trigger to prior experiences. Like Ravel's Bolero might make you think of Bo Derek, if you're old enough. Tunes that take you back into the soundtrack of your life. Audio quality is less important here. Even played over your smartphone's small speaker will bring back memories. This would have been more precise but then you would have gotten HHB or H2B. So head stands for the cognitive process that analyzes and determines what's happening in the music and lyrics. The more transparent the reproduction is, the more your brain is stimulated which gives a meditation-like brain activity. Enjoying music is of course a mix of the three H's. Even audio equipment is like a helicopter view of these processes. It mustn't get carried away by the three H's but at the same time have to see to what degree they are excited, especially the first and third one, hips and head. Heart is the dangerous one. That song that reminds you of your first love might fork the objective perception. The same goes for that track you played again and again in your room trying to get to grips with your puberty. If brain works in mysterious ways, be warned. Time for some tracks. Since I regularly changed the music I use for listening tests, I checked the play history in Rune to see what I played recently. Let's start with classical music. Rimsky Kossagov's Scheher Razzade track 1, The Sea and Simba's Ship, performed by the Kiev Orchestra directed by Valery Gergiev. It is based on the tales of 1001 night, is very melodic, dynamic and has a very nice acoustic image of the famous concert hall. Taras Bulba by Leosjana Cek, played by the Cek Philharmonic, conducted by Jerzy Bialohavek. It's dynamic with lots of percussive sounds and pizzicatos. One track I have been using intermittently for over three decades is song about Alexander Nevsky by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Choral, directed by André Previn. Each and every voice in the choir is clearly drawn on stage, as if you would immediately miss a person if he went to the bathroom to power his nose. And it's great music too, as are the solo piano works by Chopin and Beethoven. I like to recordings by Fazel Saj very much, like on Beethoven Appassionata, Wallstein the Tempest, track 1, Allegro Assai. It is very dynamic and thus needs sufficient power from the amplifier. Less dynamic but equally beautiful are all nocturnes on Saj's album Chopin Nocturnes. Both albums have a very natural piano sound. It sounds like it's played in a large room rather than in a concert hall. Since I heard quite some piano music from close by over the years, I love that. The lovely Janine Janssen, violinist and compatriot released an album in 2003, that is simply called Janine Janssen. And whether you play track 1, Dans Russ from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake or track 8, Ravel's Tzigan, the beautiful tone of a Stradivarius violin is enchanting. It is the Rivas Baron Gutmann Stradivarius, built in 1707, and Janssen plays the instrument Paraxelons. I'm not much of a jazz fan, let alone specialist. But nevertheless I play some jazz to see what that does to the device on the test. Like for instance Isfahan on Duke Ellington's Far East Suite. There also is a very nice version of Isfahan by Joe Jackson on the album The Duke. Instead of a big band he uses a rock band. Quite different but certainly not less. Another nice track is Memories from Ulrike Haages Selavi. Agreed, it's a bit of ear candy with low lows and high highs but I still enjoy it and it's a good test to see if the rhythm catches you. And now for something completely different. Parolito from the album Travieso Carmeci by Alondra de la Para. Difficult to play genre wise. It's called a Mexican American classical crossover. But that doesn't cover it for me. The La Para conducts her orchestra in a popular music style from the 60s while three well-known Mexican female singers match their voices to it. Let me name one more. The Phantom of the Opera, the original 1987 release with Sara Breitman and Michael Crawford. Track 1 opens with the auction of memorabilia of the Paris Opera. The acoustics is very nice, wide and deep with the auctioneers hammer in the foreground hammering of each cell. It changed over into the Overture, played on synths that mimic a church organ. The deep pedal notes should sound open and have clear texture. If not, you either have an amp that has too little control over the loudspeakers, loudspeakers that have poor low reproduction, poor loudspeaker placement, poor acoustics or any combination of these shortcomings. My most popular rock and pop albums at the moment are by Dutch artists, Dijkers and Strikers by The Dijk and Urk by Knitz. Both are live albums. Amsterdam's Sinfonietta accompanies The Dijk on the first album. Only Dutch lyrics I'm afraid. Knitz are more internationally acclaimed and sing in English. Apart from poetic lyrics and surprisingly unconventional music, Urk is also recorded rather well. See my video Music Tips, the Knitz Urk. A third album by a Dutch artist I like to mention is said sing-along songs by Anouk. From the Anglo-Saxon culture I like to mention Dune Tunes from the 2019 album Level 42 by the group with the same name. In fact any track on the album sounds great and is a good test for bass response and texture. Belfast Charles on the Balance of the Streets EP by The Simple Minds has an amazing atmosphere. On my setup one it's like sitting amongst the audience, very emerging experience. Don't get caught in the poignant lyrics, save that for another day. We're judging audio now, not poetic lyrics. Riders on the Storm by the Doors on LA Woman can also sound great if your stereo is well chosen and if you have the right album version. The finest I could find was the MQA version from Tidal. Also when you don't have an MQA capable playback system. For testing specific parameters I do use tracks repeatedly. For Siblin's judgement I use sketches of Spain from the aforementioned Knitz album Urk. Somewhere, somebody by Jennifer Worms from the album The Hunter or famous Blue Raincoat by the same singer and from the equally named album. But do use the 1987 version only. To see if your stereo is producing a good stereo image you could use the solo albums by Roger Waters, the pros and cons of hitchhiking, radio chaos or a muse to death. The latter being my favourite. Especially track one of the latter can produce a surround soundstage from a stereo setup due to special sound processing by Roland Soundspace. You make sure your speakers are placed correctly and that the early refractions are well taken care of. Again see my loudspeaker placement video. As you have seen I used only a limited number of tracks that are popular by audiophiles. I'm long past the neurotic comparing of small details in sound quality. Playing music over my stereo should give me a musical experience as a result of a total sound image. I've been asked frequently what's better. The RS2 DAC by Denofrips or the D28 by AudioGD. Well they will offer comparable sound quality. That doesn't mean they sound alike. There are differences. But these differences will manifest their cells differently when used on different gear. What remains is they both reproduce music in a way that is very enjoyable given the price category. Dogmas limit you and rules are there to break. So anything I mentioned here is not holy. It is far more important that you find your own ways and certainties. In answers to questions I frequently say, feel the force young audio Jedi, force you feel. Admittedly a poor imitation but that's not the point. The Star Wars Jedi thing is about finding trust in your own power and judgement. That can of course only be achieved by learning and learning is doing. Put aside your prejudices. No using a linear power supply does not automatically make the device sound great. No using an R2R network or an ESS chip doesn't either. Do your homework and then trust your ears. Feel the force. Do not seek truth in marketing facts or measurements. I know there are those that base their entire meaning on measurements and if you are from the same faith, go find your luck there and know you are always welcome back. And on that bombshell I end this video, hoping I have inspired you. There will be another video next Friday at 5pm CET. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. You can help me reach even more people by clicking the thumbs up icon and mentioning my work on the socials. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially, it keeps me independent and thus trustworthy. If that makes you feel like supporting my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.