Music for testing Audio Equipment

[phusis]

This may sound crazy, but a friend of mine (an extreme audio-buff) uses white noise as part(!) of the music(/noise) collection to test speakers and their positioning. He sees in a sense the sonic image quite vividly with white noise in particular (shifting his head, moving back and forth), and this way is able to perfect the positioning of the speakers so to make the sound cohere and become alive in ways hard to fathom. Yesterday we visited Per Kristoffersen (another friend of mine and the man behind Peak Consult speakers), and honed in his Typhoeus Momentum speakers to great effect (moving these behemoths is a challenge seeing that the weigh in at 285kg's - a piece..). Brian obviously was the "architect" behind the choices of positioning; I simply helped him providing feedback on the shifts in sound and of course moving the speakers slightly back and forth and to the sides (I did the easy part, rocking them to their sides from the top, and Brian pulling them simultaneously at their base stands). All three of us ended the session with Roger Waters' Amused to Death and the room lights closed (having only the slight blue-ish glow from the Chord mono amps to provide visual atmosphere), and let crickets, barking dogs and crazy phase effects take us on an audio tour de force. Quite the evening...

[phusis]

Heavy Duty:)

 

Indeed, and those are just the "ordinary" Typhoeus's Enter the Typhoeus Momentum..

 

[phusis]

Nice bookshelf speakers but the stands do not look very solid.. I'd invest some money into some good stands

 

Maybe they're the biggest (stationary) headphones in the world, and just need some heavy angling

 

Mr. Kristoffersen makes dedicated "base-points" for his floor-standing speakers (the ones depicted below are not similar to the ones used at our recent audition, though the overall design is):

 

 

Sorry, didn't intend for this to become an ad for named speaker brand.

 

More on topic, personally I like using older Nina Simone mono recordings, both for pleasure and testing, as older mono recordings in general. There's something about good (old) mono recordings that fleshes out the overall coherency abilities of speakers, as well as their abilities into presence and physicality.

[phusis]

wow.....So two more speakers per tower but the same tweeter, how balanced is the sound?

 

Very well indeed. Nothing about their presentation really "tilts" the balance towards the bass-heavy or dark sounding. Personally though I've never really much cared about bass drivers mounted at the top and bottom (with the tweeter/mids in between) at some distance as with the Typhoeus's, unless where a closer configuration is chosen such as with the S.P. Technology Revelation's or similar. I guess it depends on several things. I'm more into the overall sound of the Peak Consult Kepheus compared to the Typhoeus, where the low frequencies are more of-a-whole and concentrated force. Or better yet the bass of a horn, which can actually be tuneful and enveloping and integrated with remaining frequency spectrum in ways very dissimilar compared to direct radiation bass, but that's all completely off-topic..

[phusis]

Jon Hopkins' "Vessel" (for full immersion to be played gapless with the prior track "The Wider Sun").