Product: Manger CD test
Manufacturer: Manger - Germany
Approx. price: 15 $/Euro + shipping
Reviewer: Lucio Cadeddu
Reviewed: July, 2001

It is quite uncommon to find test CD's made by HiFi Companies. Manger is a German Company, manufacturer of the revolutionary full-range Manger driver (see our review of the Zerobox 109 loudspeaker), and always very careful to meet its customers' needs. For, they suggest which amps to use, which cables and, finally, which CD test for comparing loudspeakers.

The Manger CD test consists of 15 tracks, many of which already known to the audiophile crowd. For example, track 11 and 12 are by Chesky Records, the well known Livingston Taylor stuff. Track 3 is a Beethoven's Piano Sonata (# 8, C-Dur, Op. 13) by Denon/Nippon Columbia. Still from the same label is track #4 (from Denon Professional Test CD): Beethoven "Ich liebe dich", Hermann Prey.
Then there's something from Philips, Klavier Records, Divox Jazz etc.
The quality of the choosen racks is excellent, as one may expect from a test disc. The Manger CD test offers different kinds of Music, from classical to jazz and light pop. Each track is meant to test a particular instrument or musical genre so you have track no. 8 which is devoted to classical guitar (Capriccio Arabo), track no. 9 for double-bass, track 12 for an "acapella" choir and so on.
The last track of the disc is devoted to a percussion ensemble (The O-Zone Percussion Group), always very useful to test rise-time, decays and macrodynamics.
Curiosly (and not surprisingly, IMHO) no modern Music has been included. I mean: electric rock, drum & bass, dub, lounge, chill-out etc. It's a pity...and for 2 reasons, at least.
First of all, some recordings are excellent for testing purposes (Prodigy, Morcheeba, Blue Man Group...) and secondly many audiophiles (especially young ones) do not listen to Classical or Jazz. HiFi Companies and HiFi Shows organizers should start to consider this if they want to attract newer audiophiles.
The interest in HiFi has dropped even because people think a good HiFi system should be used only with Classical, Jazz and Opera. And this is WRONG. The The Fat of the Land by Prodigy (just to name a famous example) can be more demanding than any audiophile orchestra recording.

Conclusions

This audiophile test CD is very interesting, reasonably priced and with a good selection of excellently recorded tracks. Just two complaints: the lack of modern Music (in the sense specified above) and the leaflet, entirely written in German :-(
I can read Italian, English, French and Spanish only :-)