Hi Fi Demo discs

A lot of CDs from Reference Recordings are pretty spectacular. Specialise in well know classical pieces. They can have a prodigious bottom end. Possibly slightly exaggerated but good fun.

Just try “The Great Gate at Kiev” (now Kyiv), the last track from Pictures at Exhibition by Mussorgsky orchestrated by Ravel. My first CD player came with a demo disc and this track (from Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra IIRC) redefined what my music system could sound like.

That disc is long gone, but I have eight recordings of Pictues. Of the ones I have, for sound quality I would recommend:

Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra - one of the best known of the Living Stereo recordings. It’s been released on SACD.

Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra - a great analogue recording from Decca/London. The CSO was made for this piece. I actually have two more recordings of it by the CSO.

I also recently bought a DSD download of Leibowitz conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This has been an audiophile classic for years. I listened to it it once and was impressed but not blown away. It probably deserves a second listen.

I thought this was about demoing systems to make a choice on purchasing .Obviously not. I don’t demo my system to anyone why on earth would I, that’s too much like showboating and a bit vulgar. My hobby is listening to music not the hifi.

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Thanks. I am quite aware that there is much classical music that is an awesome achievement of humankind, and it blows my mind on an intellectual level, it’s just that it very rarely speaks to me in any way that interests me emotionally. And I’ve heard it in it’s natural habitat, such as the Musikvereinssaal and the Vienna opera, and to be frank I was not very impressed by the sound either.

Just to be clear, I recommended the work not primarily for its emotional content, but because it is a sonic spectacular.

Great playlist. It’s going to take me more than a few happy minutes to enter this into Tidal…

Glad to be of service. Enjoy :heart:

Don’t! If this forum isn’t big enough to include people who think the very notion of a Demo Track is beneath them and those who (like me) don’t, then it’s not a forum I want to be a member of (to quote Marx).

Adding to the list, I very much enjoyed Tron: Legacy Reconfigured the other night, despite it being a very compressed recording. As is sometimes said, a good system should be able to make bad recordings sounds at least bearable.

Mark

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