Big Classical Music

from Hsu subwoofer website:


Dr Hsu's Recommended Listening




Deep Bass CDs


Bela Fleck & the Fleckstones, Flight of the Cosmis Hippos

Warner Bros 2656-2:

Track 4 Flight of the Cosmic Hippo has extremely high levels of deep and mid bass.


Bass Outlaws, Illegal Bass

Newtown NTN 2210:

Try track 12, Stereo Bass - Ultra loud bass in the low to sub-20 Hz.


Boston Audio Society

CD-1

Track 3, an excerpt from Saint Saens Organ Symphony recorded at Jordan Hall, has the cleanest and highest level 16 Hz Dr. Hsu has ever experienced. It also has a bunch of test signals and other nice recordings done by the BAS members. A must buy for any audiophile.


Virgil Fox

Delta 15 313:

This is the first digital recording made in the United States and again Mr.Fox was on the cutting edge. It was played on the Rafatti Organ at the Walnut Grove Community Church in California. Try track 4: C. Frank s Piece Heroique, sub 20 Hz from 1:30 into track.


Star Tracks II

Telarc CD-80146:

Try track 2, starting a little over a minute into the track. Sub to mid 20 Hz bass. The buzzy sound on the right channel later on in the track is on the CD and is not a problem with your main speaker or the subwoofer.


Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Edo de Waart

Phillips 412 619-2:

This CD has deep bass down to 16 Hz on track 2. It is one of Dr. Hsu s regular test discs. The purest deep bass occurs at 9:00 into track 2. Levels here are very low. Abnormally high gain is needed to play this at wall-shaking levels. Remember to turn the volume back down after the movement! The last movement and the Widor piece also have lots of deep bass.


Mussorgsky s Pictures at an Exhibition

Dorian DOR 90117:

Mussorgsky s work is played here by Jean Guillou on the great organ of the Tonhalle, Zurich. It has strong deep bass fundamentals in the 19-20 Hz range, albeit with a generous dose of harmonics. Hence this will sound impressive on systems without ultra-clean deep bass. Tracks 5 and 15 (try 5 minutes into this track) are where the bass is most impressive.


Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky, Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, Ricardo Chailly, conductor.

London 410 164-2:

This has one of the lowest tuned conventional-sized bass drums around 25 Hz.


Pomp & Pipes!

Reference Recordings RR-58CD:

This CD has sub 20 Hz signals on tracks 4 (3:45) & 9 (6:18), and good, tight drum strokes on track 1, for example. A nice, lively CD with plenty of bass throughout.


Hindemith Organ Works, Peter Huford, organist.

Argo 417 159-2:

Try track 5, at 4:45. The 19 Hz note here is 6 dB louder than the highest level at any other frequency on the entire disc! Start with moderate level settings.



Tom Grant, The View from Here

Polygram :

Try track 3: Hang Time. Good, tight, fairly deep bass.


Respighi: Pini di Roma/Feste Romane/Fontane di Roma, Charles Dutoit, Montreal Symphony

Polygram 410 145-2:

There is an almost pure 22 Hz note on track 4 between 1:22 and 2:29


The Ruffatti Organ in Davies Symphony Hall, Michael Murray

Telarc CD-80097:

Try track 1 and track 11 (3 min 45 sec into this track). Sub 20 Hz bass.


Mendelssohn Organ Works, Peter Huford organist 11

Argo 414 420-2:

Very, very loud 19 Hz on track 8. Proceed with caution when playing this disc! Start at moderate levels and gradually increase the volume until you reach your system s limit.


Enya Watermarks

BMG C 143249

This is New Age music soothing, ethereal, spacious sound with plenty of low bass (20s to low 30s). Try track 10 ( longships ). Also reissued in 1989 with same numbers but including Storms In Africa (Part II).
http://www.enya.com


HDCD Sampler

Reference Recording RR-S3CD:

Excellent for testing bass tightness the drum strokes on track 1 and three should be extremely tight and gut shaking with no hangover.


The Sheffield Drum & Track Record

Sheffield Lab CD-14/20:

The Drum Record tracks are excellent for testing bass tightness. Dr. Hsu s favorite is track 5 on this CD.


Thom Rotella Band

DMP CD-460:

About 1 minute into track 12 is a bass guitar solo which is excellent for testing bass transients.


Jennifer Warnes The Hunter

Private Music 01005-82089-2:

Tracks 8 and 9 have very tight and loud mid to low bass





Deep Bass DVDs



Titan AE

This is Dr. Hsu s current favorite demo disc. The starting scene is great, and so is Chapter 19, the creation of the New Earth.


Final Fantasy

This is also a great demo disc. It has incredibly deep bass in the dream sequences. Defaults to Prologic mode.


Even Horizon

One of Dr. Hsu s favorite demo discs. The bass in the starting scene is strong enough to break windows. Make sure you set it to 5.1 mode. In pro-logic mode, it is anemic.


Titanic

This is a great demonstration disc. Deep bass is very strong through many parts of the movie. Dr. Hsu recommends using chapter 7. Also need to set to 5.1 mode. Defaults to Prologic.


U-571

The depth charges scene has plenty of deep bass and mid bass.


True Lies

Chapter 31 I thought this look like your work has tremendous low frequencies in the 25-30 Hz range, generated by helicopters. With great subwoofers, it should sound like real helicopters hovering in your room. Again needs to be set to 5.1 mode.


Air Force One

This is another good demo piece. Again need to be set to 5.1 mode.


Armageddon

This DVD defaults to 5.1 mode. You get great bass in many of the scenes.


Haunting

You also get very strong bass on this DVD.


Fight Club

Watch the Mid air collision scene, with a good subwoofer you can feel the air whizzing past you.


Toy Story 2

Watch the opening scene, it is said to be one of the best tests for a subwoofer s ability.

Quote:
Interesting. I'm bored with Pop.


I just starting learning about classical music. The more I listen to it, the more I like it.


I found these sites to be helpful.

http://www.good-music-guide.com/
http://www.good-music-guide.com/forum/
http://www.classicalcdguide.com/


There are others.

Quote:
The classicalcdguide is a particularly useful link because it lists both the conductor/performer and the label. This is exactly the sort of list I had hoped someone would provide in response to my post.

(FWIW I don't listen to much pop either. My main genres these days are jazz, electronica, and new age. )

There's a Telarc CD of Aaron Copland's "greatest hits." That is very dynamic.


Mercury Living Presence or Telarc's CDs of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is about as big as it gets. Careful on the SPLs, you can fry things with these recordings.


The Dorian CD of Guillou's transcription of Mussorgsky's Pics at an Exhibition IS big and bold. It was one of my audition CDs for my speakers.


Khachaturian's Spartacus ballet is pretty dynamic.


Piano Concertos #2 by Rachmaninoff, No. 1 by Tchaikovsky are dynamic too.


If you want a general rule of thumb, older classical music (Bach, Scarlatti, Telemann) and what they call "chamber music" isn't going to be very "big" and "dynamic." Music from the Romantic era (mid to late 1800s) and some more contemporary stuff (Copland, Shostakovitch) is more likely to hit that big dynamic spot you're looking for.