Shawn Kernes Blog

The last TV I bought was a Sharp Aquos LC52D62U 52-inch 1080P model in 2007, the same year my youngest daughter was born. It seemed huge, had the best picture I had ever seen, all the fancy new HDMI inputs I could hope for, and of course support for HDTV content. That TV has seen (or shown) some things. Endless hours of Teletubbies, my little pony, and bob-the-builder. Since I got that TV my eyesight has deteriorated a bit, I have prescription eyewear, and sometimes text can appear a bit fuzzy. Over the years new technologies such as 3D came along. 1080P wasn't all that bleeding edge anymore, there was no longer a need for the composite or S-Video connections on the TV, and a few more HDMI connections would be nice... But none of those things made buying a new TV worth it - especially since we rarely watched TV and the whole eyesight thing. Along came 4K, ROKU OS, HDR and Dolby Vision, and multi-zone LCD backlighting. Time to get a new TV. I considered...

Everyone seems to have their own list of "audiophile" recordings for testing their system or impressing their friends. Some examples include: https://www.cnet.com/news/the-audiophiliacs-top-music-tracks-for-testing-speakers-and-headphones/ https://www.whathifi.com/features/10-best-songs-to-test-your-speakers https://www.lifewire.com/stereo-test-tracks-3134905 https://www.soundandvision.com/content/test-tracks-your-most-important-audio-tool https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/usa/en/blog/test-your-speakers-cambridge-audio-engineer https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/pauls-picks-updated/ And of course there is the all-important dynamic range database: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr/desc/1 Personally, I'm more interested in impressing my ears than I am in impressing friends. And I'm certainly not interested in listening to music that I don't enjoy.  I thought I would start my own list of albums and tracks that meet the following criteri...