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

[dualazmak]

Please allow me repeating my stance on "Reference/Sampler Music Tracks"; I believe we need to have our/your own consistent "Reference/Sampler Music Playlist" consists of various music genres; I mean your "only one single reference music track" would be not always enough...

If you would be interested, please visit and participate my independent thread;
An Attempt Sharing Reference Quality Music Playlist: at least a portion and/or whole track being analyzed by 3D color spectrum of Adobe Audition

Spoiler

[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
[Part-15] Again, CBS/Sony's "Super Audio Check CD": Analyzed by Adobe Audition 3.0.1 and MusicScope 2.1.0: #651
[Part-16] A Cappella Chorus and A Cappella Vocal Ensemble: #652
[Part-17] Excellent Quality Music Tracks, But Containing Unacceptably High Gain Low-Frequency Air Conditioning Noises; What Counter Measures Can We Have? #658
[Part-18] An Interlude or Provisional Finale of the Post Series: #669
and,
Updated, the latest, Audio Sampler Playlist as of October 20, 2022: #670

 

[Eric Larson]

Hockey, a Real Man Sport [not like wuzzy futball, baseball, basketball, etc.]

Razor blades on feet, Clubs in hands, closed rink, Real Men.

iridium

Used to be. Now they have helmets and goalies get face masks.

 

[kyuu]

Used to be. Now they have helmets and goalies get face masks.

Oh noes. Players don't have to suffer life-altering brain injuries for a sports ball. How awful.

 

[Sal1950]

Used to be. Now they have helmets and goalies get face masks.

Yea but now a few of them have their own teeth.

 

[Fidji]

You'll know if you have any issues in bass area ... [wait approx 2min, cracking at the start is "as artist intended" no need to worry.

Hockey, a Real Man Sport [not like wuzzy futball, baseball, basketball, etc.]

Razor blades on feet, Clubs in hands, closed rink, Real Men.

iridium

Hockey is to me among those bizarre ethnic sports, like Buzkashi, where you throw headless goat carcass while riding a horse. Never understood the purpose of getting medieval look in order to chase things with stick on ice in California.

 

[Sal1950]

Hockey is to me among those bizarre ethnic sports, like Buzkashi, where you throw headless goat carcass while riding a horse.

"Buzkashi" I never knew it existed until you mentioned it here, then I had to Goole it cause I thought you had to be kidding. That's totally disgusting, even worse than bull fighting.
How it relates to hockey I have no idea, I'm not a fan but at least animals aren't being tortured and killed for sport,
That's just sick.

 

[Bamyasi]

What, no love for the "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo", no one? Best bass test for speakers ever. Or did I miss it and it has been mentioned already?

 

[Sal1950]

What, no love for the "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo"

Never heard of it.
Is that somehow related to Pink Floyd's Pigs On The Wing?

 

[Fidji]

What, no love for the "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo", no one? Best bass test for speakers ever. Or did I miss it and it has been mentioned already?

and Bela Fleck nad That One Song ;-).

Never heard of it.
Is that somehow related to Pink Floyd's Pigs On The Wing?

Actually nice jazzy thing, objectively, very well recorded.

 

[Timcognito]

A very revealing album all the way through

 

[Deepinton]

I am just getting into the critical listening phase and have heard most of these tracks. Unfortunately, many of them make me doze off. For some reason known only to the AI algos, Spotify recommended this track and it's now one of my go to tracks for fine tuning room treatments and speaker placement. Bozzio - Book of hours

 

[krabapple]

What, no love for the "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo", no one? Best bass test for speakers ever. Or did I miss it and it has been mentioned already?

I suspect even Bela Fleck is too 'out there' for most hi-fi demo room flacks to dare playing any.

 

[Bamyasi]

Another track with a good extended bass to enjoy your system:

 

[829]

(foobar2000 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1)
DR Duration Track
---------------------------------------------------------
DR11 3:58 Alphaville / Forever Young ('Petite')
DR11 5:54 Queen / Bohemian Rhapsody
DR12 3:22 Luciano Pavarotti / 'O sole mio
DR12 4:31 Vanilla Ice / Ice Ice Baby
DR12 8:00 Led Zeppelin / Stairway To Heaven
DR12 8:47 Cameron Carpenter / Evolutionary Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
DR13 3:26 Norah Jones / Tell Yer Mama
DR13 3:38 Rebecca Pidgeon / Spanish Harlem
DR13 3:45 Pink Floyd / Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1
DR13 3:48 Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong / Can't We Be Friends
DR13 5:54 Daft Punk / Lose Yourself To Dance
DR13 6:50 Nils Lofgren / Keith Don't Go
DR14 2:33 Erich Kunzel & Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra / The Pink Panther Theme
DR14 7:59 Ennio Morricone / A Heart Beats In Space (from 'Mission To Mars')
DR15 13:25 Yello / The Race
DR15 3:31 Ray Charles / Fever
DR15 4:00 Pink Floyd / Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2
DR15 4:59 Tracy Chapman / Fast Car
DR15 5:29 The Dave Brubeck Quartet / Take Five
DR15 5:36 Phil Collins / In The Air Tonight
DR16 1:43 Pink Floyd / Another Brick in the Wall, Part 3
DR17 10:18 Zofia Kilanowicz, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Antoni Wit / Symphony No. 3, Op. 36: Lento e largo - Tranquillissimo
DR18 9:15 Steve Ray Vaughan / Tin Pan Alley (AKA Roughest Place in Town)

 

[kyuu]

You need to specify where the track was sourced from, as I'm sure many (if not all of those) have "remastered" releases with much poorer DR. Also...

DR12 4:31 Vanilla Ice / Ice Ice Baby

No thanks.

 

[829]

You need to specify where the track was sourced from, as I'm sure many (if not all of those) have "remastered" releases with much poorer DR. Also...


No thanks.

Indeed. I had the same question as it is part of a friend's playlist we recently used, after set up of his new speakers (admittedly we skipped Vanilla Ice^^). He put it to show me that even that exists with a higher DR than what most of the commonly used test tracks offer (many way below "DR10", which most of the time - depending on genre - is strongly compressed).

These tracks have been painstakingly selected with the help of https://dr.loudness-war.info/ . I see that for streaming playlists this is a problem, as one rarely has a choice between different (re)masters and DR analysis of DRM-protected material would be complicated.

Main sources have been personal CDs, selected HDTracks and Qobuz DRM-free purchases and some transparent SACD downsamples (all @ 16bit/44.1kHz for practicality and best compatibility).

==
Edit @kyuu: Got the feedback that Vanilla Ice is there also because it is used for stereo XTC demonstrations, amongst other tracks like AC/DC Jailbreak (from the '74 Jailbreak album) which apparently are quite suited for this purpose.

 

[MediumRare]

Indeed. I had the same question as it is part of a friend's playlist we recently used, after set up of his new speakers (admittedly we skipped Vanilla Ice^^). He put it to show me that even that exists with a higher DR than what most of the commonly used test tracks offer (many way below "DR10", which most of the time - depending on genre - is strongly compressed).

These tracks have been painstakingly selected with the help of https://dr.loudness-war.info/ . I see that for streaming playlists this is a problem, as one rarely has a choice between different (re)masters and DR analysis of DRM-protected material would be complicated.

Main sources have been personal CDs, selected HDTracks and Qobuz DRM-free purchases and some transparent SACD downsamples (all @ 16bit/44.1kHz for practicality and best compatibility).

Which of your tracks do you recommend for testing bass?

 

[829]

Which of your tracks do you recommend for testing bass?

I will pick the 5 most suitable:

DR12 8:47 Cameron Carpenter / Evolutionary Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
DR14 7:59 Ennio Morricone / A Heart Beats In Space (from 'Mission To Mars')
DR15 13:25 Yello / The Race
DR15 4:59 Tracy Chapman / Fast Car
DR18 9:15 Steve Ray Vaughan / Tin Pan Alley (AKA Roughest Place in Town)

Cameron Carpenter goes down deep: <10 Hz. Ennio Morricone the "heart beat": first ~55 seconds around 20 Hz. Tracy Chapman helps identify boominess around 35-55 Hz.

 

[fpitas]

You need to specify where the track was sourced from, as I'm sure many (if not all of those) have "remastered" releases with much poorer DR. Also...


No thanks.

Yeah, I couldn't hear anything for the cringing

 

[fpitas]

For me it's a tough question. The most challenging tracks are those that really aren't mastered well, and sound off even on headphones.