Critical (Best) Music Tracks for Speaker and Room EQ Testing

[dualazmak]

I wonder why very few people would discuss about critical (best) "music" tracks for tweeter and super-tweeter and room EQ testing...

As I shared here and here, the "Track-20 High Fq Linearity Check" of "Super Audio Check CD" by CBS/Sony released in 1983 is really an extraordinary recording of "Bimmel Bolle Classic Orgel" containing very much powerful, high-energy, high-speed, high frequency bell ring transient sound together with wide range 30 Hz - 20 kHz base sound.

I usually use this track to check tweeters and super tweeters, as well as total Fq linearity. I have never heard recorded sound having such a high-energy and high-speed high Fq components.
View attachment 212321

Please simply PM me if you would be seriously interested in this track and/or "Super Audio Check CD" by CBS/Sony.

Let me add the enlarged and enhanced color spectrum of this amazing recording in the Fq zone of 14 kHz - 22.05 kHz;

 

[DJNX]

For testing how low speakers/headphones go, I use the original 1995 master of the song "The Cult" by Source Direct. It should also be a very good track to reveal by ear how bad a room is acoustically at anything below 100Hz. Or to reveal bad subwoofer integration.

Pretty sure no bookshelf can play this song without missing notes. My 6.5 in towers miss a few.

 

[fpitas]

Does anyone else intentionally use bad or flawed tracks to test speakers?

I have a playlist full of poorly mixed /problematic tracks that helps me quickly test transducer performance. Some are lacking bass, some have a ton of bass, a couple have muddy mixes in the mids, some quickly sound sibilant on the wrong tweeter, etc.

One track I like using in particular has a "degenerate" waveform for the lead synth: They rectified the signal so (in theory) I guess the speaker should only go out, but not in. Needless to say, it presents a challenge for a lot of equipment. It's actually hell on lossy encoders, let alone speakers from what I have heard, so high performers show themselves very quickly with this one:

https://soundcloud.com/plump-djs%2Fthe-rub-off

Yes. Flawed tracks are the gold standard for testing speakers. Any exaggeration of the flaws makes the tracks even more unlistenable. On the flip side, I have recordings that sound good even when things are terribly screwed up. Obviously those are useless for sorting things out.

 

[Markush]

It would be great if we could compile a list of tracks on Qobuz.

 

[dualazmak]

It would be great if we could compile a list of tracks on Qobuz.

Just for our reference, recently I posted these series articles on my project thread;

Excellent Recording Quality Music Albums/Tracks for Subjective (and Possibly Objective) Test/Check/Tuning of Multichannel Multi-Driver Multi-Amplifier Time-Aligned Active Stereo Audio System and Room Acoustics; at least a Portion and/or One Track being Analyzed by Color Spectrum of Adobe Audition in Common Parameters.
[Part-00] Introduction: #587
[Part-01] Full Orchestral Music: #588
[Part-02] Solo Piano Music: #590
[Part-03] Typical(?) Smooth Jazz Music with Guitar: #591
[Part-04] Bimmel Bolle Antique Orgel; Extremely High-Energy High-Frequency Sharp Transient sound: #592
[Part-05] Color Spectrum of Tracks in CBS/Sony's "Super Audio Check CD": #593
[Part-06] Female Vocal in Jazz and Popular Music, and One Male Vocal Track for Comparison: #596
[Part-07] Female Vocal and Counter Tenor in Early Classical Music: #639
[Part-08] (Smooth?) Jazz Trio: #640
[Part-09] Organ Music: #641
[Part-10] Lute Music: #642
[Part-11] Violin Music: #643
[Part-12] Cello Music: #644
[Part-13] Harpsichord (Cembalo, Clavecin) Music: #645
[Part-14] Piano Concertos: #650
Edit:
[Part-15] Again, CBS/Sony's "Super Audio Check CD": Analyzed by Adobe Audition 3.0.1 and MusicScope 2.1.0: #651
Edit:
[Part-16] A Cappella Chorus and A Cappella Vocal Ensemble: #652
Edit:
[Part-17] Excellent Quality Music Tracks, But Containing Unacceptably High Gain Low Frequency Air Conditioning Noises; What Counter Measures Can We Have? #658
Edit:
[Part-18] An Interlude or Provisional Finale of the Post Series: #669
edit:
- Updated, the latest, Audio Sampler Playlist as of October 20, 2022: #670

 

[DavidMcRoy]

From my decades of experience in video production, I would cite this guidepost: the output of a camera is not a suitable test signal.

 

[TimF]

I use this to recording thttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57ou9xFYqiYo test for sonic range and the timbre of horns and other specific instruments. It is lively piece with plenty of distinct instruments being featured. Karl Amadeus Hartmann Symphony No. 5, third movement (Rondo). The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orch. recording is first rate.

 

[Yuhasz01]

For testing how low speakers/headphones go, I use the original 1995 master of the song "The Cult" by Source Direct. It should also be a very good track to reveal by ear how bad a room is acoustically at anything below 100Hz. Or to reveal bad subwoofer integration.

Pretty sure no bookshelf can play this song without missing notes. My 6.5 in towers miss a few.

Good noise track….

 

[birdog1960]

love this:

. Seems youtube audio not great per some without subscription and not on CD. Might be worth upgrading just for this show.

 

[rgpit]

1. Track: Celestial Echo - Artist: Malia - Album: Convergence
2. Track: Pavane Pour Une Infant Defunte - Artist: The L.A. Four - Album: Pavane Pour Une Infant Defunte
3. Track: Dream of a Witches Sabbath - Artist: Kojian, Utah Symphony Orch - Album: Symphonie Fantastique, Berlioz (Reference Recordings)
4. Track: Lady Be Good - Artist: Arne Domnerus - Album: Jazz At The Pawnshop
5. Track: No Sanctuary Here - Artist: Chris Jones - Album: Roadhouses and Automobiles
6. Track: Take California - Artist: Propellerheads - Album: Decksandrumsandrockandroll

 

[birdog1960]

one more. not familiar but should sound great:

 

[birdog1960]

1. Track: Celestial Echo - Artist: Malia - Album: Convergence
2. Track: Pavane Pour Une Infant Defunte - Artist: The L.A. Four - Album: Pavane Pour Une Infant Defunte
3. Track: Dream of a Witches Sabbath - Artist: Kojian, Utah Symphony Orch - Album: Symphonie Fantastique, Berlioz (Reference Recordings)
4. Track: Lady Be Good - Artist: Arne Domnerus - Album: Jazz At The Pawnshop
5. Track: No Sanctuary Here - Artist: Chris Jones - Album: Roadhouses and Automobiles
6. Track: Take California - Artist: Propellerheads - Album: Decksandrumsandrockandroll

Malia track is awesome. New speakers keep cost'n me money. Guess i'll try free pass to qobuz (new scrabble word for q without a u)

 

[srrxr71]

love this:

. Seems youtube audio not great per some without subscription and not on CD. Might be worth upgrading just for this show.

So i’m wondering about what you know about YouTube audio quality. Does it go up with subscription?

Also using YouTube on PC has no ads at all. I wonder if the audio quality also on PC is up there with subscribers.

Is there any test? I tried “stats for nerds” but no information there on audio.

 

[birdog1960]

So i’m wondering about what you know about YouTube audio quality. Does it go up with subscription?

Also using YouTube on PC has no ads at all. I wonder if the audio quality also on PC is up there with subscribers.

Is there any test? I tried “stats for nerds” but no information there on audio.

this is what I found: https://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/youtube-audio-quality-bitrate-240p-360p-480p-720p-1080p. unfortunately the linked test doesn't currently work

 

[srrxr71]

this is what I found: https://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/youtube-audio-quality-bitrate-240p-360p-480p-720p-1080p. unfortunately the linked test doesn't currently work

Thank you for that. It’s probably all mid quality lossy aac at least for non subscribers. EDIT: same for subscribers.

So YouTube subscription as of about 2 years ago also includes Google Play music automatically and they charge you an extra $3/month. At that time when you could no longer just subscribe to YouTube they renamed Google Play Music to YouTube music.

There was no grandfathering in either. It was accept the extra $3/month or leave.

Now it becomes very blurry about what content is YouTube uploaded by a user, what content is considered copyrighted and uploaded by a rights holder and what content is actual YouTube music.

I doubt it even matters because upon recent research their big boast is that they improved quality from 128kbps to 256kbps after their first year.

This is little league stuff compared to Tidal, Qobuz, and from about 2 years ago Apple Music and even Amazon Music which both went lossless and Hi-Rez about 2 years ago if not more.

Very surprising for a $trillion+ company.

Personally I like both the Spotify and YouTube music suggestion algorithms (though probably Pandora is the best for set it and forget it). Both those companies are behind in quality.

I think there will be many opinions on the other services.

I liked MOG before it became beats music and then Apple Music.

The sad thing is these multi billion dollar companies own the music industry now. Spotify actually suggests and auto plays cheap music they don’t have to license or with very low royalties or even self produced junk now.

Rick Beato goes into this topic in an important interview about the music industry. You’ll find some self created stuff hit very high on the charts simply because people let Spotify pick.

I’m totally for independent artists getting play time but this is more self produced junk that they just make to pad their streams. There must be a whole Christmas song library they produced themselves ready to go for the season. They do anything to avoid paying artist and record labels.

It’s not just them but all these companies basically do the same thing.

YouTube suggestion seems pretty good not that it’s great. It gives you a whole lot of options to pick from especially on a large screen. You can scroll down and find something. It also learns your tastes very well and customizes to you. However it does not really introduce new artists to you.

Probably you need different platforms for pleasure listening and for exploration listening. Spotify pushes you a little harder but then you might get some self produced stuff.

 

[dualazmak]

It’s probably all mid quality lossy aac at least for non subscribers. EDIT: same for subscribers.

I, too, am always suspicious about quality of audio layer of YouTube clips; in some audio/video clips the audio quality is really nice, and occasionally we encounter very bad/low audio quality clips.

Even though I (we) can share the YouTube link to specific video/audio clips of our interest, I (we) cannot guarantee its audio quality since I (we) do not know the readers' YouTube subscription status as well as their internet access speed/quality.

I attached this caution reminder, therefore, to each of my posts in recent here and thereafter "post series" on "Audio Sampler Music Tracks".
> Caution and Reminder:
> Even though I refer to YouTube video/audio clip(s) in this post, I cannot guarantee its sound quality since I know little about YouTube's audio codec/compression, and furthermore I know nothing about your internet access environments.

As you can find in my post here, I also prepared a ZIP file (6.3 GB) containing all of the 60 intact/non-compressed "Audio Sampler Music Tracks" I described/discussed in the "post series" for further ongoing intensive communication with my audio enthu friends on the thread and/or through PM contacts.

 

[srrxr71]

I, too, am always suspicious about quality of audio layer of YouTube clips; in some audio/video clips the audio quality is really nice, and occasionally we encounter very bad/low audio quality clips.

Even though I (we) can share the YouTube link to specific video/audio clips of our interest, I (we) cannot guarantee its audio quality since I (we) do not know the readers' YouTube subscription status as well as their internet access speed/quality.

I attached this caution reminder, therefore, to each of my posts in recent here and thereafter "post series" on "Audio Sampler Music Tracks".
> Caution and Reminder:
> Even though I refer to YouTube video/audio clip(s) in this post, I cannot guarantee its sound quality since I know little about YouTube's audio codec/compression, and furthermore I know nothing about your internet access environments.

As you can find in my post here, I also prepared a ZIP file (6.3 GB) containing all of the 60 intact/non-compressed "Audio Sampler Music Tracks" I described/discussed in the "post series" for further ongoing intensive communication with my audio enthu friends on the thread and/or through PM contacts.

Wow thank you for compiling all those tracks!

 

[dkinric]

So i’m wondering about what you know about YouTube audio quality. Does it go up with subscription?

Also using YouTube on PC has no ads at all. I wonder if the audio quality also on PC is up there with subscribers.

Is there any test? I tried “stats for nerds” but no information there on audio.

Whenever I post a music recommendation link here, I use YouTube as everyone can access it. I assume they will dial it in to whatever music service they subscribe to should they want to critically listen.

 

[srrxr71]

Whenever I post a music recommendation link here, I use YouTube as everyone can access it. I assume they will dial it in to whatever music service they subscribe to should they want to critically listen.

I like using YouTube personally. It’s just too easy and the interface is nice and easy. I could use Apple Music and go direct to my DDC but I find the headache not to be worth it.

I’m working my way back up to that critical listening style. Don’t want to spoil myself too quickly with the new setup.

For these tests I would just use a quality source. It’s funny how I clamored for hi res for years and when it comes out to just go back to lossy aac out of convenience.

 

[birdog1960]

I'm using Amazon music unlimited because I stream mostly through a fire stick. I think the sound quality is generally good and like that it's prominently displayed for each track. I also like that they suggest quality music videos based on my listening. I don't like the clunky tv app and can't even find recently played or favorite tracks on it. Need to go to my phone or computer for that but maybe It's operator error. I've compared the stream quality via wifi from the computer to that of the firestick and they seem the same just much less convenient to use the computer. Would seem a relatively easy app upgrade for amazon.