On other people’s systems, if I am feeling polite we will START out with something easier than Radiohead, like the title track on Sailing to Philadelphia (Knopfler, Taylor).

It is accessible / acceptable by most people, “sounds good on every system”, and does tell us a quite lot about a system and its overall ability to image, produce emotion, handle sharp transients, etc. [we know this track very well] and the owner of the system won’t think we are trying to ‘break their system’ or trying to expose its flaws to the public for ridicule [although at RMAF 2010 I only used Radiohead, having little time and a good deal of confidence in each system it was played on… somewhat to my ultimate chagrin].

Take care,
-Mike

It is nearly impossible to Make “The Raven” or “Keith Don’t Go” sound bad. So why use them as references for system eval?

If we refer to the scientific lit, rock is the best vehicle for discerning system diff’s. Symphonic classical is second. (Actually, test tones are first, but too little fun to include.)

If I am short on time, I throw Janis Joplin “Summertime” (Live) at the system. If that sounds good - even to a ‘layman’ - the system is top-15% of all those that I have experienced. On 75% of systems, the track sounds like a cacophony…

Bob Walters