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Playlists of test tracks I use (Installment No. 1 of 5)

Posted by John Marks on April 18, 2024 at 08:43:55:

Back when I was writing for the semi-famous independent automotive-news website "The Truth About Cars," the managing editor was Jack Baruth. Jack later worked for Road & Track, and then for Hagerty Media, where I wrote a few music columns for him.

Jack asked me to write something for his Substack blog "Avoidable Contact Forever," so I returned to the Evergreen subject of music tracks for the subjective evaluation of loudspeaker drivers (and also completed loudspeakers). The tracks are up on Qobuz and Tidal as playlists, linked to from the articles.

Which of course is an idiosyncratic decision process. So, I have created five playlists and written annotations as to why each track makes sense to me for the purpose. Installment No. 1 is up at the attached link; the others will follow once a week going forward.

1) Voices: Male, Female, and Group
2) Instrumental Music: Small-Scale Soundscapes
3) Diverse Music: Large-Scale Soundscapes (Part 1 of 2)
4) Diverse Music: Large-Scale Soundscapes (Part 2 of 2)
5) Pleasures, Both Guilty and Innocent

One I think novel wrinkle is that when I discuss large-scale soundscapes, in Installment No. 3, I discuss three different recordings of "Also Sprach Zarathustra," and in Installment No. 4, I discuss three different recordings of "Carmina Burana."

In the same vein, in Installment No. 2, I discuss four different solo-piano tracks. BUT! two of the tracks were recorded by different pianists playing the same piano in the same recording venue, recorded by the same engineer! Those four tracks really do reward close listening!

So far, there are more than 100 comments, and some of them are a bit unbuttoned, but that's modern life.

all my best,

john