The Best Songs For Testing Audio Systems

What makes a song great? It’s a completely subjective question although many people might argue they have the right answer. Nit-picking aside, there are a few qualities that most of us can agree on – good rhythm, a catchy melody, thoughtful lyrics. But even if you decide that a song is great, it still may not be great for testing an audio system.

When testing an audio system, there are specific qualities within some songs that can help you pinpoint where your system might be underperforming. When it’s time to hit play and listen intently, these are the things you want to pay attention to:

• Low end – This is frequencies below 250 Hz. Listen to the bass guitar and the kick drum or the low and deep frequencies of the keyboard and synthesizer. Those tones should be clear, warm, and punchy, not muffled or muddy.
• The midrange – This is frequencies between 250 Hz and 4 kHz. Try to home in on the vocalist, guitar, or a brass instrument like trumpet. They should sound natural and clear. It should sit nicely in the mix and not too in your face or too distant seeming.
• The high end – This is the frequency between 4 kHz to 20 kHz. This can be a little more difficult to identify. In this frequency range, you are trying to listen to the quality of the instruments rather than the actual instrument itself. It’s the crispness of the air in the vocal, the brightness in the high-hat, and the definition in the snare drum. You’ll commonly hear these frequencies referred to as “Click” for kick drum, “Crisp” or “Snap” for snare drum, “Sizzle” or “Overtones” for cymbals, “Buzz” or “Presence” for guitar, “Presence” or “Overtones” for piano, and “Presence” or “Air” in vocal tracks. Listen for sounds that are crisp, bright, precise, or even piercing.

A well-mixed song could perfectly showcase all of these qualities for you to listen for. But, typically, some songs reveal more low frequencies, and some reveal higher frequencies. That is why choosing the right song is important when assembling a system testing playlist.

Use our “System Testing Listening Guide” to help zero in on specific frequencies and assemble your own all-star playlist!

Other Considerations

Before you push play, there are a few more things to consider when testing an audio system:

• Use uncompressed files – Most common streaming services use compressed audio. It works great for everyday listening on normal speakers or headphones, but when played through a professional system, you’ll notice the loss in audio quality. Not ideal for system testing. So, while putting your playlist together, avoid .mp3 files and turn to loseless formats such as .FLAC, .ALAC, or .WAV files at 96kHz or greater. The files retain the audio quality even better than CDs and will translate beautifully into your professional system. You can listen to your favorite system testing songs in these formats through several different services. Here are a couple that we like:
  • Stream your songs in FLAC format with TIDAL: tidal.com
  • Purchase your songs in .WAV format here: hdtracks.com
• Choose songs you know well – this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it can be helpful. The better you know a song, the easier it will be for you to hear when it just doesn’t sound right.
• Understand your space – The room or environment that your audio system is set up in is going to play a huge factor in how the audio sounds to you. If your space is too echoey or spans a large amount of space, causing delay between speakers, you’ll need to compensate by performing a full room tuning.
• Use high quality cables – If your cables aren’t up to par with the system, they could introduce unwanted noise that will distract from your testing. Don’t skimp when buying audio cables and connectors.

Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus

You probably already have your go-to songs and playlists for speaker testing. But we wanted to share our own playlist with you and maybe you’ll be inspired to spice up yours. We’ve used many of these songs in our own system demos over the years and also added some new ones that help reinforce different audio characteristics. Feel free to follow and share this playlist on Spotify so if you’re ever in a situation where you need some testing tracks, you can pull this up in a pinch.

As stated above, when testing audio systems, it is ideal to use uncompressed .WAV files. This Spotify playlist is compressed for streaming and will not have the same effect as uncompressed audio files. If you like any songs in this playlist, you can purchase them here in .WAV format to add to your own playlists: https://www.hdtracks.com/

Happy testing!