Before buying a component or hi-fi equipment, try it out, if possible with your own music. Having the opportunity to enjoy an audition with music that we know very well is essential, especially if we are investing our savings in a nice component/sound system. However, not all the music is able to bring out the virtues and defects of a

high fidelity experience.

By @anbal (Spanish Community Super User)

What song can I use to determine the quality of my equipment? It is not a simple thing, this has been raised to someone who knows a lot of audio: Sean Olive, sound and acoustics researcher in Harman, the JBL matrix.

‘Fast Car’, by Tracy Chapman. According to Sean Olive, that is the best song to try a component. "When it was launched in 1988, we discovered that it was well recorded and that it seemed to have all audio frequencies, from 20 Hz to 20 KHz," explains Olive. To have some context, 20 Hz-20 KHz is the audible range of a young and healthy ear. When we talk about ‘low frequencies’ it is about 20-250 Hz. 

When we talk about ‘middle frequencies’, it is about 250 Hz to 2 kHz and when we talk about ‘high frequencies’, 2-20 KHz. Below the 20 Hz are the infrasound and above 20 kHz, the ultrasound. Neither of us can listen to them.

What are we looking for?

According to the researcher himself, the first thing to look for is the bass. Then the cymbals, are they heard clear or are they strident? To this we have to add the vocals, "If the speaker has problems reproducing the ‘lows’, basically maximize the ‘woofer’ excursion and then begin to modulate the vocals,". 

Many speakers and headphones have too much power in the ‘lows’ or bass and that can mask/cover the voice. 

These are the top songs to test your speakers/headphones. A little bit of everything (rock, reggae, vocal jazz, instrumental jazz, ethnic and classical music.)

1. Eagles - Hotel California. Perfect for analyzing the timbre and resolution of a device.

2. Dire Straits - So Far Away. It is great for us to determine the dynamics of the amplification and the speakers

3. Santa Esmeralda - Don't Let Me Be. Like the previous topic, a great option to check the dynamics.

4. Bob Marley - Is This Love. A great song to analyze the ability of a team to reconstruct a three-dimensional sound scene.

5. Rebecca Pidgeon - Spanish Harlem. Great option to check the timbre, transparency and, above all, the precision with which a device restores the medium frequencies.

6. Hugh Masekela - Stimela. This cutoff is an absolute reference to determine the bass delivery capacity of any equipment.

7. Vivaldi - Flute Concerto in D. A very interesting section to analyze the timbre and background noise level of a device.

8. Carl Orff - Carmina Burana. Colossal to check how a team handles a large orchestral mass and determine if it is capable of reconstructing a broad and correctly stratified sound scene.

9. Metallica - Whiskey in the jar.  A very interesting song with lots of bass, distortion (for your speakers) and nice ‘highs’ for the vocals.

10. Groove Armada - Superstylin’. Nice combination of bass to try out your woofer along with some nice vocals to test our ‘mids’ as well.

For sound system engineers of the Bose audio equipment manufacturer, they need songs that represent a variety of sounds and recording techniques to ensure that new systems can recreate a song with the depth of the original recording. "All systems engineers know these songs inside and out," says Mark Armitage, head of the acoustic engineering team at the company's field office in Michigan. "It is a universal language that we can use when trying and adjusting."

These are some of the songs that the sound system engineers suggest:

‘Pink noise’ Mono

Holly Cole Trio - "I Can See Clearly Now" 

Winterplay - "Billie Jean"

Tom Petty - "Learning to Fly (Live)" 

Dave Brubeck Quartet - "Take Five" 

Steely Dan - "Hey Nineteen" 

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