When you first get a new set of speakers or headphones what are the tracks you use to test them out? Tracks which work the full range and test the clarity and depth of the cans.
Posting my top 5 tracks here and would love to hear your input/
“I Hold” ft Marika Hackman by Sivu
“Cloudlight” by Eskmo
“Teardrop” by Massive Attack
“Right Where It Belongs” by Nine Inch Nails
“Piano Trio No 2 in E flat major” by Franz Schubert
In my eyes these tracks are great for testing out a set of headphones due to their wide range of sounds, moments of quiet and subtle features.
Biffy Clyro - JoyDiscoveryInvention and Many of Horror
Massive Attack - Paradise Circus and Teardrop
The Flashbulb - Undiscovered Colors
Deadmau5 - I Remember (Instrumental Mix) and Strobe
Amoa Mass - Bombs Over Breakfast
The Beatles - Hey Jude (Listen for one of them shouting “fucking hell” in the background at ~2:55)
Queens of the Stone Age - First it Giveth
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Can’t Stop and Under the Bridge
System of a Down - Revenga and Questions
Tenacious D - Tribute
Pixies - Where is My Mind
Florence + The Machine - Dog Days Are Over
30 Seconds To Mars - Was it a Dream and From Yesterday
I think these songs give me a good idea of the separation and balance of whatever I’m listening through. A lot of the time I’ll just chose a random track, but these are my favourites to test.
Any song I’ve listened to alot, usually different genres. Some Amon Amarth, Ne Obliviscaris, and stuff. Then some Zweihander, Glitch Mob, Lindsey Sterling.
Blood Milk and sky - White Zombie
Then I usually run through random Andy James or Ewan Dobson tracks.
All of those are on a play list at the top for when I’m gaming. Use them to compare to other sets and to test what I might need to change.
Pretty much any song that you’re familiar with personally can be a reference track. You listen to it long enough that you instantly hear the changes in a song when it’s played on a different gear. As long as you have a gear that you use personally as a reference benchmark. I switched DAC/Amp recently from SMSL SD-793II to CEtrance HiFi-M8 and the difference is night and day when playing through my familiar high-res tracks.
I got the flac version of this album. it’s a great mixture of tones to test out a set of headphones. Not usually my style but i actually think the collaberation with badbadnotgood(jazz) is excellent. Especially with some decent headphones.
A lot of people say that Solar Fields - Movements is a good sound system benchmark. It’s brilliantly composed and fun to listen to, but the quality of the mastering and production is really special. As if every sound was placed and tuned to perfection. When I was using the HD 800’s, while I didn’t think they were the best headphones for around the thousand dollar mark, I thought that album really had a great benefit from the “analytic” nature of those headphones, listening to them after like a random hip hop or dubstep release and you can really tell just how far ahead some artists are from others in sound production and mastering. It’s embarrassing for some of these guys, Benga and Hatcha’s releases of the top of my head, I thought sounded really muddy and sloppy compared to something like a Luke Vibert or Autechre release. It could be that they were a really shitty dubplate rip, but I think what.cd and some of these trackers you find this stuff on have pretty high standards, otherwise the albums get flagged and removed. I think with the complexity of the track comes more attention to detail for the overall sound quality of the release. Just my opinion.
Neurofunk Drum’n’Bass. It relies heavily on exaggerated Low, Mid and Hi. In other words the best producers attempt to fill out as much of the spectrum as they can get away with, so it feels like being hit by a brick wall of sound. Then I killswitch low, mids and high and listen to them individually to see how much comes through on an EQ spectrum analyzer to see if any bands are continuously exaggerated or muffled across a variety of tracks. I also use sinus tests, but you asked what tracks.
Queen - greatest hits I and II
For the variety of production and sound and because I know every song by heart and listened to them on so many soundsystems and headphones over the years.
Had a listen to the first track, I’d love to get the individual tracks used to create this, being able to just have that bass pulse would be a fantastic test when setting up subs as part of a whole room surround system. Then once thats sorted slowly add in the extra stuff balancing it throughout the room.
Drop him a PM on his youtube account or through the contact information and ask for it. He is a really nice guy. It might take a while as he gets loads of mail because he is all the rage among the neurofunk crowd atm.
If you buy a FLAC version of it this thing will knock down walls if you have large cones. I get calls from our seismic recording centre all the time and are told to, and I quote here “turn that shit down because it messes with our equipment”. Perfect for toeing in the low end.
I knew an Sound Engineer that would listen to Bohemian Rhapsody on new equipment, besides test variety of test tracks. He said that it had enough variety that it gave him a good idea of how the equipment performed, but he said the most important thing is to have a consistent test or playlist so you can accuracy compare different equipment.
