Hi DaveB and Henry66,
We used the "Fast Car" track from the Tracy Chapman album for many years of loudspeaker blind listening tests at the National Research Council in Ottawa. It was one of our standard test tracks and I think Dr. Sean Olive still uses it at Harman's listening facility in L.A.
The a cappella version of "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega from the Solitude Standing album was one of the standard test selections for audio codec listening tests in Canada, the U.K. and Australia. I participated in the Ottawa tests for several days. If the data rate went below 320 kbps with virtually all of the lossy codecs, her voice would get a bit metallic and sibilant sounding. That track was very revealing of compression artifacts.
Cheers,
Alan
