“…stop by and bring some of your music….” – how many times we hear when we invited to listen someone’s playback.  I am sure all of us have a selected favorite recording to assess playbacks and I would like to share some of mine that I have been using for a while.

However, this thread should be properly understood. My named recordings are NOT BEST QUALITY RECORDINGS but rather the recording that I personally (because one or another reasons) have heard within countless playbacks and countless reiteration of my own playback, and that I found illustrative and clarifying to my listening objectives. What is VERY important to understand that the named recording I use to assess the performance of playback ONLY AT FIRST AND SECOND LEVELS OF LISTENING PERCEPTION:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=50#50

I might use different music to go for higher methods of playback assessment but I would like do not talk about it in this thread. So, below are the recordings that I AM ACCUSTOMED to play on the unfamiliar playbacks in order to get a rough sense of the playback Hi-Fi performance.

1) Shostakovich Symphony #9 by Eliahu Inbal with Wiener Philharmonic in 1995 – a phenomenal  Wiener’s royal tone with superbly balanced and very smart play

2) Tchaikovsky 4, 5, 6 by Mravinsky and Leningrad Philharmonic – the celebrated London and Vienna recording in 1961. Pretty much any 2 minuets of any movement in this recording tells to me pretty much everything about the playback

3) The Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” by Bohm and Philharmonia Orchestra – the 1962 recording – superbly played, superbly sung with very complex demeans.

4) Tchaikovsky’s Ballet Suites by Rostropovich with Berlin Philharmonic. It is 1978 recording where Rostropovich showed off himself as a genius-conductor. The BPO is shaped up and demonstrate a very interesting and very multifaceted play. The playing of the Valse from the Swan Lake immediately portrays the entire playback.

5) Stravinsky’s the Firebird Suites by Eiji Oue and Minnesota by RR in 1996 – say whatever you want but it is very hard to beat it, particularly during the soft passages.

6) Liszt’s Mazeppa by Karajan and Berlin Philharmonic in 1961 – it composed and played with the showpiece attitude and it required the very same attitude from a playback.

7) Tchaikovsky’s String Quarter #2 by “Belcanto Strings” from 1993 – it is very difficult to playback it properly…

8) Beethoven’s Sonatas by Ivan Moravec from 1960s - extremely nice balanced performance.

9) Bach’s Double Concerto with Heifetz and Friedman with New Symphony and Sargent – the stereo version from 1956 – all playback make it sound good, the real grate playbacks will be less enthusiastic in their audio affords.

10) Mussorgsky “Boris Godunov” by Karajan and Wiener Philharmonic from 1961 – absolutely the best production off Rimsky-Korsakov version that requires a lot from playback.