[zloy loup]

Quote:

Wow! Maybe I should try with that genre! Any advice what to try?

Well, a good portion of my own orchestral/classical music, and something I really like testing 'phones with, are compositions created by the composer Joe Hisaishi. They are all very good for testing soundstage. Many of the recordings also have sounds like turning pages, breathing, and other subtle details which you can listen for.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygdv1jNy9bc This track has some parts which I like using for testing instrument separation and clarity.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKp3y6363vI This track will suffer if there bass bleeding into the mids, also a good soundstage test. It tends to sound strangely intimate on headphones with a bad soundstage.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXDREcdYDNM Not quite orchestral, but here's a movie track which works well for testing imaging and soundstage width. A particular moment is the drumroll at 1:29, which should sound like it is approaching you. Not many IEMs I listened to have been able to reproduce this effect.
 
...You get the drift.
 
The deal with orchestral music is that it usually needs a pretty neutral signature to sound good, so that will be an influence in your judgement. But despite that it is still useful for testing aspects of sound which are more widely regarded as desirable, such as soundstage, separation, imaging, clarity. It's better to get live recordings, because live instruments have very pronounced timbre and variations which synthesized music can't match. In general, I think any live orchestral music will work, you just have to find the right set of tracks for yourself, 

 

[-sandro-]

Thanks I will definitely try those tracks and advises.

What about you clieos? Do you use a fixed series of tracks for your reviews?

 

[ClieOS]

I most regularly use the sound track of August Rush for review. Seem strange at first, but the CD is composed of a good number of different music: pop, classical, male vocal, female, boys, girls, live, instrumental, etc. Then I just listen to what I am regularly listened at the time of the review or songs that I am very familiar with. Lastly, I use The Violin Player by Vanessa-Mae and some Piano tracks to check for accuracy, especially for analytical IEM. Most IEM will fail these last tests as I only find a small handful of IEM that can do well in violin and piano.

 

[Techno Kid]

Quote:

Say if I have IEM with really good, upfront vocal. That's the first thing (vocal) I will look to compare to other of the same sound signature (mid centric, in this case), see if I can find another IEM with more or less about the same vocal performance, then compare the other aspects (extension, soundstage, etc) between these two IEM. If the IEM under review isn't quite as good on these other aspects, I move down to a lesser IEM of the same sound signature and compare them - I repeat till I believe I find a suitable 'position' for it to be. Then I move on to compare it to IEM of other sound signature of relatively the same level of overall sound quality, and repeat the comparing process again. Note that at this point, I am not just paying attention to the good vocal anymore, but the overall performance.
Lets assume the good vocal IEM performs as such: Good vocal (+3), decent bass (+2), roll-off treble (+1), poor soundstage (-2), other (-1). it gets somewhat of a 3 point rating.
Then with a balanced sounding IEM, it might be: Good soundstage (+3), Good bass but slightly boomy (+2), Sightly sibilant (-1), decent dynamic(+1), poor vocal (-3), other (+1), it too get around a 3 point rating.
That's how I come to an conclusion that these two IEM should be the same level of performance, or at least very closely rated. The idea is to group up all the plus and minus in an IEM and look at it as a whole, and try not to only compare one category at any given time.
I can't say this is the best way to do it, but this is the system I develop for me to evaluate IEM, and it seems to work fine for me. The only problem is that you will need somewhat of a decent size collection of IEM to make it work this way, but the bigger the size of the collection, the harder the process becomes. Personally, I won't want to do this as a day job.

 
 
That's a very good way of doing it like you said though you need a large collection to do it right so that's something I could never do but I really like the concept, it must be very time consuming.

 

[planx]

If I like the way it sounds, it's good SQ IMO. Instant bias when you find a sound that interests you and you instantly think it's good SQ. Of course there are hundreds of factors determining SQ because it is always up to the listener to determine the SQ for them. So I really don't care what a lot of people has to say about determining SQ on a product I haven't tried myself yet, so I rely on personal experience only. If I like it, I keep it. If I don't, why bother keeping it..? Kinda obvious haha