Which track do you demo to your friends?


You know when a friend arrives at your house, sees your stereo and says "how much did all this cost". You tell him/her the $$$ and they say "are you mad?" Of course, the next step is to justify it by playing something that will make their jaw hit the floor. Which track do you play? Me, I play a track called "Spanish Harlem" by Rebecca Pidgeon off an album called "The Raven". Works every time :-) Their jaw hits the floor, and no-one speaks till the song is over. Then they something along the lines of "Oh, I see what you mean". Follow up/alternate demo tracks for me would include "Fire and Roses" by Mimi Goese and "Ordinary Life" by Christen Barry. What track do you play in this most demanding of moments?
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Garfish, I mirror your opionions exactly. I usually let people choose from what I have. But, if they insist on me picking, I either take the title track of Lucinda Williams "Car Wheels On a Gravel Road", or one of many cuts from Southern Culture On the Skids "Dirt Track Date". Usually, people want to be blown away, as they equate power, bass, and loudness to sound quality. Most people don't spend enough time there listening for esoteric things such as microdynamics, low noise floor, soundtaging, detail, etc.(all the stuff we revel in). If you don't play something that rocks, you will often receive a comment such as, "Ah man, c'mon. All that money for that?!? My JBL's blow the doors off your $10K speakers! You really should check out my JBLs, I think they're the best speakers out there."
Trelja, well said. What track(s) might you use if one of "us" came over to audition your system?
I let my friends pick whatever they want to listen to out of my collection. If it's my choice 2 of my favorites are James Newton Howard and Friends(sheffield) or Madonna- The Immaculate Collection(gold import version). I also like to use Dead Can Dance because most people have never heard them before, so it really gets their attention, plus the aound quality is incredible.
Let them choose! If you go to dealer to hear some equip do you want dealer to play some music you never heard before, no you bring music or have them play music you know so you have a point of reference for how good it sounds. Trelja no need to worry about big bass, guests will hear so many new details and spatial resolution they never knew existed from a CD they heard a 100 times, usually they will refuse to believe that it is the same CD that they have till you let them exmine it closely
Thanks for the responses here - more music for me to check out :-) I do agree that letting them choose makes a lot of sense - however, sometetimes they chose poorly recorded CDs. For example, the Moby Play CD (great stuff) has so much background noise on the CD, one would think it was introduced on purpose - one of my friends was surprised this background noise was still there - he thought my system would miraculously eliminate it. I wish....