A list of recordings that I have used as "references", and have followed me through my audio journey. I'm listing them in the approximate order of me starting to use them as "references" / favorites...
These were my first 4 reference recordings, had them before I had a stereo system (late 1990s):
YES, I started building my music library before I had a system, let alone a CD player!
Uuno Klami - Karelian Rhadpsody Petri Sakari, Iceland SO, Chandos CD 1994 A wonderful performance, refreshing experience on a capable system. Superbly recorded, very dynamic and tests both level low level, quiet playing and forte complexity handling to the max. Very, very demanding recording. At the time of purchasing this CD, the composer was unknown to me, and I bought the CD in a record store after listening to a large number of CDs on the store's test system with headphones. This CD and the Holst below (bought at the same time) were by far the most dynamic and best recorded symphonic recordings that were available in the store.
Gustav Holst, Richard Hickox Sommerset Rhapsody, Egdon Heath etc, LSO CHANDOS CHAN10911X CD. Absolutely beautiful, if you love Holst, you must listen to this interpretation / beautiful recording. Gave me much joy along the years, even though I am a baroque soul (listen & tolerate very little past Beethoven.)
Dead Can Dance - Aion CD Wonderous music, sounds "amazing", "high end" on all systems. After listening to it a million times now I'm often a little annoyed by the mechanical nature of the album, some bits feel too concept-y. (But, that is after hearing it at least hundred times!) Alas, Lisa Gerard's singing is unrestrained, pure and always a delight to hear. Music from the Antipodes...
Mercedes Sosa - 30 Anos Verve - 518-789 2 CD Absolute celebration of human voice. Beautiful, powerful female voice from South America. Such a miracle. Superbly recorded, will make any system sound wonderful. A trip to the human soul.
The "references" (I called them my test CDs) I used to death almost religiously between 2000-2010:
#1 Cantate Domino CD (At least several hours of play each week, for years! This was my absolute reference point to develop and fine tune most of my early system: preamp, cables, phono stage, amplifier development - and first and foremost: my hearing!)
#2 Byron Jannis - Pictures at an Exhibition MLP stereo CD (used to voice my stereo 70 modifications and the Voigt pipes, before I implemented the Cantate Domino) This recording has both original piano and Ravel's orchestration, both with lovely interpretations and high quality, natural recordings.
#3 Dorati - Swan Lake MLP mono CD (prompted me to experiment with mono & first taste of big dynamics & transcendental experience - original on 35mm mono master tape, tremendous dynamic range.)
#4 Victor Borge at the Carnegie Hall CD (for getting hall acoustics right, claps of the audience, piano in a concert hall, voice, lots of aspects altogether)
Favorites that I listened to all the time, basically, these were my additional "acting references" between 2000-2010:
Harry Bellafonte at the Carnegie Hall LP (Wonderful hall acoustics)
Kaláka - Nálatok laknak-e állatok CD (Quite likely the MOST NATURAL SOUNDING album of all times. Vocals and dozens of acoustic instruments. Astonishing simplicity and naturalness. Singing is in Hungarian, the entire content is children's songs, lyrics written by some of the greatest Hungarian poets, but album is incredibly enjoyable regardless of understanding of lyrics - the tone, the sincerity, the open soul comes through, there's no language barrier to that.)
Beethoven Symphonies, Ferencsik János CD (The interpretation of the 9 symphonies that sits closest to my heart, in the most NATURAL CONCERT HALL recording / miking that I have experienced. I feel with the most credibility that I am in the audience with this recording.)
Segovia DG collection CD (The ultimate guitar player for me is Segovia. He is not showing off his technique at the expense of interpretation, not trying to prove his skill to blind and untrained men. He is bringing us serenity, balance, depth. Beautifully recorded.)
Enya The Celts All the Enyas are tricky. They will not make your system sound incredible or stellar-o-matic as archetypal reference recordings do. Quite the opposite, when your system is on point, Enya will take you on a journey into your soul, to far, far away, back to the peaceful, nature-centric Celtic era where women were cherished and arts and education flourished. To the Celtic age, which was snuffed out in the massive violence of bloodshed that the Roman empire inflicted on Europe. The Roman empire has erased freedom and respect of women, and brought death and suffering on an unprecedented scale, starting the era of slavery, monumetal trips of power, and the killing of nature in favor of giant stone buildings and war machines opposed to a life style in balance with nature - and our neighbors. While we celebrate the birth and contribution of the Roman Empire as the cornerstone and birth of our modern civilization, the sad reality was that the Roman Empire nearly eradicated all culture and most rights of freedom that pre-existed, and unleashed a level of bloodshed never before seen in European history. For Europe, it took over a millennium to recover from that incredible violence and finally climb out of the Dark Ages, marking the beginnings of cultural rebirth, incidentally, the birth of modern music that we all cherish and hear every day. Enya's earliest albums have the best sound, her new synth changed from 44.1kHz to 48kHz sampling rate, and does not sound as natural as the old one!! So, if you are curious to explore the cradle of Western civilization: the peaceful era before our culture became troubled and our waters muddied, Enya will take you there. 2000 years into the past. If she succeeds in taking you on this journey, then your system has passed the Enya-test!
Enya Shepherd moons
Enya The memory of Trees
Enya A day without rain
Enya Watermark (with the new synth)
As you see, I have no LPs in this "reference" list. I never thought of LPs as "references" or calibration tools, always as pure enjoyment. I have added the Bellafonte LP though, as all of my friends had it and we listened to it all the time, and was a reference for us to compare our systems. (The Cantate Domino comes second spot in our audio circle.) Basically, I used CDs for voicing and experimenting and AB testing and comparing changes, and then played LPs with a laid-back attitude for pure delight. Reason: LP needs time to warm up, which significantly impacts its use as an unmutable reference. CD is much more stable as reference, you get what you get CONSISTENTLY, no fuss with warm-up, stylus clean or dirty or tracking misaligned... LP listening is always a UNIQUE EXPERIENCE THAT NEVER CAN BE DUPLICATED. Also, I can't stay objective nor in analytican mode when the music takes me far away, not a thought on the audio gear...
And many of my favorites that I have listened to a lot, disproportionately more than other music in the past 20 years:
Kaláka - Villon ballades LP
Schubert / Arrau Philips (CD)
Ella in Berlin (LP)
Jazz at the Pawnshop CD
Bave Brubeck - Take five LP
Madonna - Ray of Light (CD)
Jarre - Oxygene (LP)
Vangelis - Soil festivities LP
Vangelis - Antarctica, LP
Vangelis - Odes LP (Greek pressing)
Vangelis (Aphrodite's Child) - 666 LP
Vangelis - Direct Arista 1988, 209149 LP
Vangelis - Blade Runner CD
Kraftwerk - Autobahn LP
Depeche mode - Black celebration LP
The Yes Album Atlantic SR8283 1971 LP
Yes - Drama LP
Cranberries: To the faithful departed CD
Cranberries: No need to argue CD
Shinead O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra Chrysalis CD
Shinead O'Connor - Universal Mother CD
Genesis - The Lamb lies down on Broadway Charisma VJL10-11,12 Japanese pressing LP
Piaf tonight. Angel ANG65024. Mono. LP
Hobo Blues Band - Vadászat CD
Szörényi Levente / Bródy János: István a király rock opera LP
Bródy János: Hungarian Blues, Pepita Stereo SLPX 17642
King Crimson - Islands LP
Pink Floyd Ummagumma
Pink Floyd - A saucerful of secrets LP
Pink Floyd - Meddle
Pink Floyd - Atom heart mother
Pink Floyd - The Dark side of the Moon LP
Pink Floyd - Wish You were here LP
Pink Floyd - Animals LP
Pink Floyd - The Wall LP
Pink Floyd - The Division Bell CD
The art of Emmanuel Feuerman - Victrola mono, immortal performances. VIC1476. LP
Starker - Bach suites LP
MLP SR90153 Respighi The birds. Doráti. London SO. LP
Enya - Orinoco flow 45RPM LP
Falco - Amadeus 45RPM LP
Cutty Ranks - Limb by Limb 45RPM LP
Dr Alban - No Coke 45RPM LP
Björk - Debut CD
Johanna Martzy - Brahms Concerto in D Angel, LP
Beethoven symphonies - János Ferencsik LP
And some that I have not listened to that much, but are certainly top notch reference quality:
MLP MG50348 mono Szeryng plays Kreisler. Charles Reiner pianist. (presence and crazy dynamics) LP
MLP Doráti Delibes Coppelia SR2-9005 blue/white sash. (dynamics, soundstage) LP
MLP SR90366 Hovhaness symphony 4 (Kintaro’s favorite) LP
MLP SR90373 Ravel Ma mère l’oye, pavane, tombeau,... Paul Paray, DSO. Promo. (my fav of Ravel, superb perf & rec Q) LP
Debussy La Mer / Iberia: Olympian Living Presence MG50101 Paul Paray. (smokes MLP stereo version in imaging and every aspect) LP
Rossini Ouvertures Doráti MSO MLP SR90139 (uncolord, extreme dynamics, outstanding drums - George Piros. Possibly the best MLP I heard) LP
Segovia - Platero and I, second series. Decca DL10093. Mono. (incredible 3D stage) LP
Rameau, Complete clavichord works, Vol 3. W9316. Robert Veyron-Lacroix. Westminster mono. (possibly best clavichord record to day) LP
EMI HMV Greensleeve ED29 0461 1 Malcolm Arnold Symphony 2. England, DMM. (top demo) LP
1C065-03 691 EMI Electrola. Brahms Doppelkonzert. Perlman / Rostropovich / Haitink. (incredible cello tone) LP
Songs streaming that can pop a gasket provided your system is up to the task:
Káryyn - Jayna (Youtube - brutal bass, copious frequencies UNDER 20Hz! Want to test your sub's low extension? This is IT!)
Goblins from Mars - Imperial March (Youtube - again, sub-20Hz nirvana. )
Massive Attack - Voodoo in My Blood (Youtube - total mindfuck... pardon my French. No other way to say it. This song is a massive attack on your nervous system.)
Fever Ray - Keep the streets empty for me (Youtube - very haunting, soul-blasting... pray your rig can keep up)
Bebe - Siempre Me Quedara Sensual, haunting, emotional "Female vocal" of the millennium. Such deep, sad, endless longing. Will drive you to despair.... you just want to put it on repeat and forget the world ever existed...
As you have noticed all of these above are on YouTube. They have high view-counts, that is, the sound quality you will get is usually between 192k-256k mp3, depending on your connection speed. (Instead of the 60k-128k mp3 quality you are getting from the sound samples I upload - not because of me, because YT downsamples small channels to favor the big ones....) Yet, if you find them grainy, gritty, problematic - sadly, the error is in your device. With a good DAC, I mean a REALLY GOOD DAC all the mp3 coding does is lose some detail, especially mids and highs. With a superb DAC all these will sound almost as if you were listening to an ANALOGUE SOURCE - technology should disappear, only the music remain.