What tracks are useful to place your speaker to the right spot.
Mono recordings. When you get it right, all the sound should sound like it comes from a phantom speaker that is exactly halfway between your speakers.
Piano recordings. Solo piano recordings are the easiest way for me to hear if the speakers are set up right. Slow works with long, held notes.
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There is a nice album for this:
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Would be nice if this was available on physical media…
I am not much of a buyer of downloads – just my preference.
Great suggestion in any event.
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I looked it up more than once. No physical media is sold anywhere!
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You could burn the download to a CD if you have a player.
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The dealers I know never use test tracks for finetuning.
In the first record I heard some strange noise that i thought it was a kind of distortion.
By tuning the speaker i hear that i was wrong.
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I use PS Audio’s CD/SACD: (you can get by itself or with the book)
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I use the Norah Jones song Little Room from the Not Too Late album for center image, her voice and guitar come from dead center and when I get that right I can move on to other adjustments.
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Agreed with mono. The Beatles recordings are superb for this. That are some mono recordings that are kind of challenging. Webster’s Soulville is one of them. It sounds to me kind of a “wide mono”.
Muddy Waters Folk Singer is another great recording. Dynamics, acoustic instruments, separation of the voices, pristine recording, it is the whole package. He sings and plays his guitar dead center, with a lot echo, the second guitar on the right, drums on the left and deep bass on mid left. It is hard to have everything working just fine. Your mid bass coupling has to be just right to the tonal balance to work.
In Paul’s book/CD, the center image track is also very help.
Also, pink noise correlated helps a lot to get the center and tonal balance right.
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