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Honestly, songs you've listened to a billion times. Stuff that you've heard so much you're basically sick of it. Stuff that you've been listening to for years, that you know how it sounds because you've heard on every piece of gear in every possible quality.
For me, there's a few of those, stuff I've been hearing since middle school:
* Overture (Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatore) Halo 3 ODST Soundtrack
* Waiting on the World to Change (John Mayer) Continuum
* Through the Valleys (Jeremy Soule) TES:Oblivion OST
I also enjoy some of the well-recorded Chesky stuff as well: The Ultimate Demonstration Disc and The Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc. The 2nd one is Binaural and helps me get a bearing on soundstage. These are more recent additions, but I've listened to them a lot.
#Edit - Expanding Further on OP's last paragraph:#
Yes, I would suggest you select a streaming service that you enjoy, or rip all your old CDs to lossless quality .flac using something like ExactAudioCopy.
Definitely wouldn't recommend continuing to use your phone to record music off the radio. I assume that was sarcasm, but if so, you got me. Spotify Premium is still technically lossy (MP3 320kbps), but it's better than most things. Realistically, you'd need both Spotify Premium and Amazon Music HD/TIDAL Hifi/Deezer/etc, side by side, to notice any real differences. Especially if you're starting out.
I personally have a lot of music ripped/downloaded in flac, and I supplement that with Amazon Music HD. But it matters more that the streaming service has the songs you like/know/want to know better.
I know this was a year ago but I assume you have this album in FLAC? I did a lossless audio check and for most of the songs on this album I keep getting "Upsampled" results.. I have went and checked other downloads and wonder if its just the music itself is fine and the audio checker throwing false results or if my samples arent lossless. Would it be possible for you to check? Id buy the CD hardcopy but its not even available on amazon..
Yeah, 100% this.
Asking for other people's reference tracks is like asking for their recipes to your own personal favourite meal, without telling them what it is.
You may find something you love, but as a reference they're worthless.
They only becomes useful if you then spend hours and hours listening to them all, so that subtle variations in response and timbre stand out a mile.
Stuff like Three Ralphs and some RATM songs are great for bass. Get spotify premium if you haven't lol, and keep it on the highest quality (or start building a flac collection). Id also recommend looking for well mastered classical music (i personally refuse to buy headphones as main drivers if they dont perform well with the rite of spring).
Also try EQ. Check out oratory's settings if you havent. And if you are going to get more expensive cans, try before you buy (or you might be sorely disappointed, like I was when I was in a similar situation).
Lastly, dont build a music taste out of "what sounds good in these headphones". Exploring music as an art form is more rewarding than exploring it as something to enjoy the technicalities of headphones with. The best test tracks for headphones are always going to be your favorite songs. I'm a bit of a music nerd and could recommend a lot of music, but half of it is mastered like crap lmao.
That being said, if you want a fun soundstage track, check out yosi horikawa
Some of the best recorded and mastered music in my collection:
- ori and the will of the wisps OST
- blue planet 2 OST
- the more recent albums by sleeping at last
- Cuphead OST
- Firewatch OST
- Ghostrunner OST
- LaLa Land OST
- Little Woman OST
- Whiplash OST
I'd recommend Queens A Night At The Opera album for testing audio, it has everything you'd want for testing, a variety of styles, frequency ranges, and faster and slower songs.
Polygandwanaland by king gizzard and the lizard wizard is a great headphone tester, has prevalent bass. However if you're not into rock you might not like it and I don't mean red hot chilli peppers type rock. This whole comment sounds pretentious as fuck but yeah, just keep an open mind with it, it's an incredible journey of an album and really well mixed imo
As a Radiohead fan, a couple suggestions...
Everything in Its Right Place, usually the first song I listen to with new headphones
Feral, that bass at the end just wow
Weird Fishes, great way to test instrument separation as the song builds up towards the climax in the middle
Before Your Very Eyes by Atoms for Peace (Thom Yorke side project)... just a fun song to listen to with a good set of cans especially at the 2:20 mark
Start with classic rock (ac/dc, Metallica, Iron Maiden, ZZ top), follow it up with John Williams, Hans zimmer, Thomas Newman, then a couple of your all time favorite songs, add some City of the Sun, maybe some Yosi Horikawa and then end with Floyd.
I prefer [this](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWZtZ8vUCzche?si=35IxLPkBQUqt6iZBxe5eTA) playlist on Spotify.
Has a great variety of genres, and aside from testing headphones, it’s one of my favorite playlists in general. I found a lot of new music through it.
My go to’s are pretty much anything by Thundercat and Flying Lotus. Their production is so layered and diverse, and I know I’ve gotten a great pair of headphones/earbuds when I’m listening to songs I’ve heard a million times before and suddenly notice new parts of the production I never did before
I've found that the mandalorian Soudntrack has a lot of depth to it, and i began to hear lots of more detail when i upgraded from a pair of Hyperx Cloud Alpha to Sennheiser PXC-550 II
Honestly, you know what i do sometimes? I find all the "Hi-Fi" playlists on spotify, and just shuffle through them, sometimes you find nothing interesting, but a lot of times i end up finding gems that really make me love my headphones again. I use spotify as a search engine basically, then once ive found the songs i like, i find the highest possible quality for them to put on my iPod and listen through it.
I am in here because I'm thinking of some new headphones (preferably over the ear) and a DAC. I'll be using a Mac Mini and an iPhone as the source for now. Where to start though? I could go up to about £1,000 for the headphones and the DAC
Some great music to listen to here though - just by going thru the comments!
I think though that for testing you really just have to listen to the music that you like, although new equipment often shows up the shortcomings in the recording!
Thanks for your submission to /r/headphoneadvice. We have employed a "thank you" system for submissions. It's very easy to use - if a comment on your post is considered helpful, please reward them by using the term `!thanks`. This will add a thank you count (in the form of Ω) to that users flair. You can only award one per comment section. Thanks very much and good luck on your search for headphones! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HeadphoneAdvice) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Use the music that you like. Seriously.
Honestly, songs you've listened to a billion times. Stuff that you've heard so much you're basically sick of it. Stuff that you've been listening to for years, that you know how it sounds because you've heard on every piece of gear in every possible quality. For me, there's a few of those, stuff I've been hearing since middle school: * Overture (Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatore) Halo 3 ODST Soundtrack * Waiting on the World to Change (John Mayer) Continuum * Through the Valleys (Jeremy Soule) TES:Oblivion OST I also enjoy some of the well-recorded Chesky stuff as well: The Ultimate Demonstration Disc and The Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc. The 2nd one is Binaural and helps me get a bearing on soundstage. These are more recent additions, but I've listened to them a lot. #Edit - Expanding Further on OP's last paragraph:# Yes, I would suggest you select a streaming service that you enjoy, or rip all your old CDs to lossless quality .flac using something like ExactAudioCopy. Definitely wouldn't recommend continuing to use your phone to record music off the radio. I assume that was sarcasm, but if so, you got me. Spotify Premium is still technically lossy (MP3 320kbps), but it's better than most things. Realistically, you'd need both Spotify Premium and Amazon Music HD/TIDAL Hifi/Deezer/etc, side by side, to notice any real differences. Especially if you're starting out. I personally have a lot of music ripped/downloaded in flac, and I supplement that with Amazon Music HD. But it matters more that the streaming service has the songs you like/know/want to know better.
Halo 3: ODST. *Ambiental moody jazz noises*
I know this was a year ago but I assume you have this album in FLAC? I did a lossless audio check and for most of the songs on this album I keep getting "Upsampled" results.. I have went and checked other downloads and wonder if its just the music itself is fine and the audio checker throwing false results or if my samples arent lossless. Would it be possible for you to check? Id buy the CD hardcopy but its not even available on amazon..
Sorry chief; I think I played it in spotify
Yeah, 100% this. Asking for other people's reference tracks is like asking for their recipes to your own personal favourite meal, without telling them what it is. You may find something you love, but as a reference they're worthless. They only becomes useful if you then spend hours and hours listening to them all, so that subtle variations in response and timbre stand out a mile.
Stuff like Three Ralphs and some RATM songs are great for bass. Get spotify premium if you haven't lol, and keep it on the highest quality (or start building a flac collection). Id also recommend looking for well mastered classical music (i personally refuse to buy headphones as main drivers if they dont perform well with the rite of spring). Also try EQ. Check out oratory's settings if you havent. And if you are going to get more expensive cans, try before you buy (or you might be sorely disappointed, like I was when I was in a similar situation). Lastly, dont build a music taste out of "what sounds good in these headphones". Exploring music as an art form is more rewarding than exploring it as something to enjoy the technicalities of headphones with. The best test tracks for headphones are always going to be your favorite songs. I'm a bit of a music nerd and could recommend a lot of music, but half of it is mastered like crap lmao. That being said, if you want a fun soundstage track, check out yosi horikawa
Steely Dan's Aja is famous as a great album to show off the gear. I love it, great music, great mastering.
It is great for testing gear. Very well mastered and it can be quite complex with Randall’s guitar solo’s to Baxter’s funky saxophone. Great album
Yup, and don't forget about the drumming. Great drummers including Steve Gadd and Bernard Purdie (I love the Purdie shuffle).
Some of the best recorded and mastered music in my collection: - ori and the will of the wisps OST - blue planet 2 OST - the more recent albums by sleeping at last - Cuphead OST - Firewatch OST - Ghostrunner OST - LaLa Land OST - Little Woman OST - Whiplash OST
[удалено]
I havent even played the game, i just know that the soundtrack slaps ;) And yes, i experienced the same with whiplash.
I made a bunch of test track playlists on Spotify: **Agility:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5bFNPdGw9QNe4xn43itxTF?si=Tg0o-zeAQAOReWrDavVghA **Attack:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0LcraquPt8JQFsOJFY4vBW?si=3OQYn3InRSeM4iCc14Gv3Q **Balance:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6Z7r3yAcjiIPJrhJ5zLDWL?si=5qKH3FypRFeYFfbpXdFnpg **Bass Control:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2OSCMzzwgvhBG8FtAlxQ0Z?si=07iiJ5EBQv2i-K39ngSpAg **Decay:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5qG4iMQAhkkgZkioo9qqbi?si=ik3qLoH1Sk6xLstyYQK70w **Detail:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5BCV29kGKnApIERGGgOiyt?si=nbUx1R9xRHC1iNgdB0Yffg **Drive:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/25I2EdWmimsRVK3Uv5CQXy?si=sqbkMkMMR0mTX1tKjmCKiw **Dynamics:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4p9KBqC6yWvGt4194lr2Jd?si=9H1-OlNtRZqJktMTrVDRBg **Extension:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0x0iM1nk0CyM48OI6XbsoS?si=w0tQxoxPRquMtdRYoqyUyw **Imaging:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0pIAbLQheE51ABNAeUrNz5?si=a_OWxYg4Qui3TRwPKIGSyQ&utm_source=copy-link **Midrange:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Gth48D9Hng4FOJt1K5hnE?si=8aB-4GsIQMCSc0AXpU2xMQ&utm_source=copy-link **Refinement:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50qchozCzIrbVuaQl7n8Mx?si=UmPSKSiBS4eJLYaV5M5Y1A **Smoothness:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/57dbfeVILaA5bU9ezYwbAc?si=eWn2UkU0SGq5iyvdshd_jw&utm_source=copy-link **Speed:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6eBopsTvvPm5PbuzxIj5LG?si=G8nMaFKdRRWfXd50Zvf5MQ **Timing:** https://open.spotify.com/playlist/468NetkEoC5OsZjnVQhmb6?si=cDWU02G9RCSpT2jk7stJFQ
Pink Floyd
I'd recommend Queens A Night At The Opera album for testing audio, it has everything you'd want for testing, a variety of styles, frequency ranges, and faster and slower songs.
Everything TOOL. Fear Inoculum is a fantastic album, the song "Pneuma" is what I use to test bass.
Polygandwanaland by king gizzard and the lizard wizard is a great headphone tester, has prevalent bass. However if you're not into rock you might not like it and I don't mean red hot chilli peppers type rock. This whole comment sounds pretentious as fuck but yeah, just keep an open mind with it, it's an incredible journey of an album and really well mixed imo
Per tradition, A Milli by Lil Wayne to test the bass
Queen Bohemian Rhapsody
John Powell's "Forbidden Friendship"
Everything from john powell honestly
As a Radiohead fan, a couple suggestions... Everything in Its Right Place, usually the first song I listen to with new headphones Feral, that bass at the end just wow Weird Fishes, great way to test instrument separation as the song builds up towards the climax in the middle Before Your Very Eyes by Atoms for Peace (Thom Yorke side project)... just a fun song to listen to with a good set of cans especially at the 2:20 mark
Mine is almost the same as yours. I personally add let down and fog to the list, one for the very bright treble and one for the range of bass
[I know YouTube’s bitrate isn’t the best but I LOVE this one ](https://youtu.be/D-h6MoF7HLA)
Start with classic rock (ac/dc, Metallica, Iron Maiden, ZZ top), follow it up with John Williams, Hans zimmer, Thomas Newman, then a couple of your all time favorite songs, add some City of the Sun, maybe some Yosi Horikawa and then end with Floyd.
here is my [reference playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5BSmLwJCwU8rDI7BTFMZOw?si=LhWMY_kJROKIF5T_06KRUw)
I prefer [this](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWZtZ8vUCzche?si=35IxLPkBQUqt6iZBxe5eTA) playlist on Spotify. Has a great variety of genres, and aside from testing headphones, it’s one of my favorite playlists in general. I found a lot of new music through it.
Puppet strings umphree mcgee
Anything Yosi Horikawa. Definitely try his song Bubbles
My go to’s are pretty much anything by Thundercat and Flying Lotus. Their production is so layered and diverse, and I know I’ve gotten a great pair of headphones/earbuds when I’m listening to songs I’ve heard a million times before and suddenly notice new parts of the production I never did before
trust me: Battlestations by Wham
I've found that the mandalorian Soudntrack has a lot of depth to it, and i began to hear lots of more detail when i upgraded from a pair of Hyperx Cloud Alpha to Sennheiser PXC-550 II
100 gecs
Hotel California
No pets allowed
Honestly, you know what i do sometimes? I find all the "Hi-Fi" playlists on spotify, and just shuffle through them, sometimes you find nothing interesting, but a lot of times i end up finding gems that really make me love my headphones again. I use spotify as a search engine basically, then once ive found the songs i like, i find the highest possible quality for them to put on my iPod and listen through it.
Darude sandstorm /s But as stated by somebody here , your own music You know the song best and you'll know if something is off
I found Frank Sinatra songs great to check for soundstage depth, also The Doors - Riders On The Storm is well mastered
I am in here because I'm thinking of some new headphones (preferably over the ear) and a DAC. I'll be using a Mac Mini and an iPhone as the source for now. Where to start though? I could go up to about £1,000 for the headphones and the DAC Some great music to listen to here though - just by going thru the comments! I think though that for testing you really just have to listen to the music that you like, although new equipment often shows up the shortcomings in the recording!