Reference Tracks: Musician, Producer, Pressing Plant Founder: Meet Gar Ragland

"Every room, every system, is different. That's part of the fun."

Welcome to Reference Tracks, a series from KLH where we talk to people in the music and audio business about what songs, albums and artists they listen to when testing out a stereo or speakers.

For this Reference Tracks update, we spoke to Gar Ragland, the CEO and founder of Citizen Vinyl, North Carolina’s only pressing plant. He has been involved in the business of sound for more than 30 years, first as a musician who shared bills with Govt. Mule and Dave Matthews Band, then as a producer-in-residence at Echo Base in Asheville, North Carolina and now as the CEO of Citizen Vinyl. As a student of the New England Conservatory, he’s thought about sound pretty deeply for most of his professional life. 

Citizen Vinyl grew from a single press in 2020, to now being the exclusive home of VinylKey, a patented technology that adds an NFC chip to records that allows for a more immersive record collecting experience.

“With a smartphone tap, owners can register the record, verify authenticity, and access exclusive content,” Ragland tells KLH. “That could be high-resolution downloads, bonus tracks, behind-the-scenes video—anything the artist or label wants to offer. The records are also serialized, which collectors love; we know which order your record came off the press thanks to this technology. It gives artists a direct, ongoing connection with fans.The content can evolve over time, too. It’s not static.”

Here, we talk with Ragland about how he tests studios and rooms with an old U2 cover, and how silence is as important as the music when testing audio quality.

KLH: When you’re testing out a stereo or studio, what songs do you go to?

Gar Ragland: There are a lot of ways to answer that, but when I think about reference listening—walking into a new control room or evaluating a hi-fi system—the first track I reach for is Cassandra Wilson’s cover of U2’s “Love Is Blindness” from New Moon Daughter, which came out on Blue Note in the ‘90s.



It’s a hauntingly beautiful recording, and I know it inside and out. That familiarity is key. Her voice has this husky, textured timbre, and a good system will capture the grain and nuance in her vocal. There’s also a lot of space in the arrangement—the openness, the air between instruments—so you can really assess detail and separation. The instrumentation spans a wide frequency range, too, which helps evaluate how a system handles everything from low end to high-frequency detail.

Something I’ve been hearing a lot in these interviews is that the silence in a recording can be as important as the music itself when evaluating sound.

Absolutely, it’s essential. Miles Davis said something along the lines of, “The music is the silence between the notes,” and that really applies here. If you’re listening to something dense and heavily compressed like a Foo Fighters track, it might sound great, but it’s not as useful for evaluating a system’s technical performance.

You need contrast. Things like quiet passages, space, dynamics. That’s what reveals how a room or system actually behaves.

What other tracks do you use when testing a system?

I tend to stick with music I know very well—things that are already in my ear. Acoustic recordings are especially helpful because they usually have more space and dynamic range. A couple I come back to, like Tim O’Brien, “I’ve Endured” from Traveler or Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. Another one is Led Zeppelin, “When the Levee Breaks.”

“With the Levee Breaks” is great for low-end response. It will tell you how well a system handles that huge John Bonham kick drum. Kind of Blue, on the other hand, is incredibly spacious and quiet. I’ve been listening to that record for 30 years and I know every note, so it’s a perfect benchmark.

Beyond specific tracks, I’ll also test different formats. If vinyl is available, I’ll use it. Even surface noise can tell you something about detail retrieval. For digital, I prefer high-resolution sources like Qobuz. Highly compressed streaming doesn’t give you much to work with.

It sounds like familiarity is just as important as the recording itself?

Exactly. You need a reference point. The goal is to understand how a new room or system differs from what you already know. And every room, every system, is different—that’s part of the fun. Each one has its own character shaped by both the gear and the acoustics.