Music tracks for tweaking


I have monitors and powered subs with built-in cross-overs. After burning-in new speaker cable, the cross-over point needed to be adjusted. There’s a clean kickdrum solo opening “I’m So Aftraid” on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dance’ CD. These few beats were great for dialing in the cross-over point and volume. Now, the kickdrum sounds tight & resonant w/o being wooly. This adjustment seems to work pretty well across-the-board for all music.

What other music tracks might you recommend for tweaking - whether it be midrange, high or low frequency? Also, what hidden musical cues within songs have you discovered. One example might be is a certain percussive note a bell or a triangle. With Tidal’s vast library, there’s opportunity to see how resolving our system’s are.

steakster
I like No Sanctuary Here by Chris Jones.  An extremely good copy of that track is available on the Stockfisch Compilation LP.

a couple of other favorites are my home is in the delta by muddy waters from the album folk singer (mofi LP) and cat Stevens wild world from tea for the tillerman (quality record pressings LP)

im sure all are available on Tidal, but the LPs I mentioned are outstanding!
steakster-
Fleetwood Mac- Rumors or Greatest Hits are excellent for demo trax.
Any track off of Steely Dan Two Against Nature. There is everything from holographic layered soundstages such as Janie Runway to the extremely deep bass drum on What a Shame About Me and Negative Girl. My favorite is Jack of Speed though, the bass drum really propelles the song forward if everything is firing on all cylinders.
I pick three albums of different types of music to come up with the best balance for a system.

David Pritchard
nmmusicman: Steely Dan - excellent suggestion. 

My latest reference point is Sarah Gazarek’s "You Got By’. She is close-miked in a booth. On my system, in the opening phrasing, her voice seemed a bit too strident, fatiguing. It is most unlikely that the recording engineer allowed it to be released like that. With a cable-swap, she sounded sweet and airy. But, then had to go back to the "I’m So Afraid" to see what happened down in the bass region. Ha!
" Any track off of Steely Dan Two Against Nature."

I have to agree totally.  This became one of my top reference CD's and propelled me to buy the Aja CD on Amazon which came with a free Aja download.  Both CD's really do give my system(s) a great workout.

Bill