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Best song for immediate impact when presenting or testing?

I, as most of you, have my regular tunes that I play or listen to when trying out a new system or playing music for friends. My current starter is 'Feels like Rain' by Aaron Neville. It engages me immediately because I love it so, but it is also very well recorded and has a bass voice doing backup which in the right system has a real visceral impact.

I was at an Audio shop recently, listening to my standards, and wanted to show the sales consultant a piece that he might not have heard. I played 'Golden Rust' off the Miles Gurtu album. After about 30 seconds, he pulled out his device and added the song to his favorites. I asked why did he add so quickly, and he said that the opening electronica had a three dimensional stereophonic quality that made a remarkable impression right off the bat. I paraphrase lightly; that was his comment.

What pieces do you play of any genre that have an immediate impact, especially for people listening to a good system for the first time?
128x128cmjones
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akg_ca's avatar
akg_ca
1,033 posts
 
LOVE OVER GOLD - Dire Straits
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
Stones’ Midnight Rambler on Disc 2 Hot Rocks 1964-1971 CD, the 2002 DSD REMASTER by ABKCO

Cheap and Tawdry.
vineman55
14 posts
 
Allan Taylor's "Colour to the Moon"...
agrippa
32 posts
 
I don’t like to play for immediate impact. That is cheap and tawdry and right off the bat encourages people in all the basest aspects of listening. Of course this is what everyone does in demo’s. Then they wonder why there are no women audiophiles, why so many constantly churn components (looking for the next immediate impact), why so few audiophiles have any real listening skills.

What I like to do instead is play something very simple and quiet like......

Quoted because I couldn’t possibly agree more.

When I have guests with no previous experience with or interest in HiFi, I put on whatever music I think they might like. Generally they’ll never have heard a halfway decent system in their life, so pretty much anything will make an impact.

If I want to show off what the system can actually do and have guest who’ll know what they’re hearing, I put on "In darknesse let mee dwell " from " A Candle in the Dark " by the Newberry Consort, "Church Windows" by Respighi, "The Great Gate of Kiev" by Mussorgsky, a couple of songs from "Early Hours" by Eleanor McEvoy, something from Lisa Gerrard’s solo album or maybe Holly Cole’s album "Temptation". Depends what music they’re into.





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