What Are the Best Songs to Test Speakers and Headphones?

Date:2020/3/3 11:18:16 Hits:

When we’re recording and mixing, whether a live recording at a gig or a studio session, the top three critical items (at least in my opinion) are your ears, the room and its acoustics, and your monitoring system. It all comes down to accurately hearing what you’re capturing or mixing — you simply can’t make accurate judgments and decisions without having confidence in all three of these mission-critical items.

Mission-critical Listening
Knowing the list of the three essential items for critical listening is the first step — we’ve now got that. But the next part of the equation — confidence in them — is a tougher one to establish. I’ve spent more hours than I care to remember evaluating studio monitors, headphones, and listening spaces, and I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned along the way: The key to establishing confidence when evaluating a space or speakers — or when “calibrating” your ears — is referencing. In this case, “referencing” means putting together a list of music that can be played through whatever speakers or headphones, in whatever space you’re working, to create a baseline against which you can judge the speakers/headphones/space. By carefully choosing the music you use as your reference material and by learning what it sounds like intimately, you can evaluate frequency response, dynamic response, and frequency curve so that you can have confidence in what you’re hearing and the judgments you’re making when recording and mixing. For this article, we’re going to dial our focus in on the speaker and headphone part of the triumvirate.

The Goal Is Knowledge
Reference listening can tell us a lot about speakers and headphones:
Low-frequency extension — how low do the speakers/headphones comfortably go?
High-frequency extension — how high will the speakers/headphones comfortably play?
Midrange clarity — can you hear “into” the mids, or is it just a washy wall of sound?
Spatial imaging — how well can you hear the “location” of a sound in the stereo or surround field?
Detail — can you hear every little thing that was captured in the original recording?
Dynamics — are the soft parts quiet and the loud parts loud? How big is the difference between soft and loud?
Depth — does everything feel like it’s all on the same plane, or is there “foreground” and “background” depth?
You could test many of these things empirically, by actually measuring the frequency response, for example. And that’s fine — although there’s little reason to do so, when the manufacturer typically provides such specifications for you. I find it somewhat instructive to get an idea about the boundaries of speaker or headphone performance from the specs, but it’s far more valuable to gain answers to the above questions by actually listening. I’ve found that items with the same specs can still sound quite different from one another.

Choosing Reference Songs
Back when I was writing product reviews as the Editor of EQ magazine and Senior Technical Editor at Keyboard magazine, I assembled a CD of songs that I used to evaluate and test monitors. Over the years, it evolved — the songs changed — before finally settling into a final form that I still use to this day, albeit as a playlist in iTunes rather than a physical disc. The songs aren’t necessarily my favorites, or even songs, genres, or artists I regularly listen to, but that isn’t the point. They each have some characteristic that puts the spotlight on a certain aspect or aspects of speaker or headphone performance. Most of these are older songs, because I’ve been using this list for a while, but they all still do their respective jobs for me, so I see no need to change at this point.

My list is below, but you really need to come up with your own list of songs that speak to your needs and preferences and what you want from a set of monitors. The point of including my list is to show you why I selected the songs I did, not to give you a list of songs you should use. Armed with the “why,” you can sally forth and find your own list of references. Or not — if you want to use my list or even just start with my list and change things out for other songs along the way, go for it! And you may also discover some cool new tunes in the process.

1. “Back in Black” — AC/DC. I always play this song first, because I know it extremely well. It features big punchy drums and dynamic mix, and it provides a good overall view of how the speakers sound. There’s a reason you hear it played before many concerts start, as live sound engineers often use it to evaluate their system, too.

2. “Lotus Eaters” — Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. The LAGQ is a classical-guitar quartet, and this song is extremely well recorded. If I can hear the specific location of each guitar in the mix, each part they are playing, all the little details in each guitarist’s tone and performance, and I feel as if I’m in the room with the players, then I know I’ve got a very revealing set of monitors or headphones.

3. “I Love You” — Sarah McLachlan. I only need to hear the first few bars of this; there’s a low synth bass pattern in the intro. On many monitors, the lowest note is simply inaudible — they don’t reach that low. If I can hear it, the monitors have great low-frequency extension.

4. “North Dakota” — Lyle Lovett. Besides being somewhat of an homage to my home state, George Massenburg was the man behind the console, and he created a sonic masterpiece here. I’m listening to the dynamics, the reverb tails, and the depth in the mix.

5. “Gaslighting Abbie” — Steely Dan. There’s an interesting depth to this song; although there’s clearly a ton of compression and limiting on everything to make it very present, there’s also a reverb enveloping the mix that is inaudible on lesser monitors and headphones. I’m also listening for clarity and separation in the various instruments and voices.

6. “Where Will I Be” — Emmylou Harris. The amazing Daniel Lanois did this one, and it’s laden with ambience and echoes that challenge the clarity and detail in monitors well. A key point I listen for is the kick drum, which is punchy but has a very deep low-frequency component. At 1:40, electric bass comes in; some monitors deal well with the full bass sound and that deep kick, but others can’t separate the two very well.

7. “Living Dead Girl” — Rob Zombie. Talk about a wall of sound. This mix is huge and in your face. But of interest are all the little worms, twinkles, and squeegies that live within the thick mass of guitars. If I can hear them, then I’ve got good midrange clarity and detail.

8. “Big Bug Shuffle” — Douglas, Barenberg, and Meyer. In this bluegrass trio recording, someone is tapping their foot during the intro; how well I can hear it tells me a lot about clarity and depth. Edgar Meyer’s upright bass also has deep low-frequency extension.

9. “Knowledge of Self” — BT. This electronic track has surprising dynamics, along with a huge array of timbres that must be accurately reproduced for the whole thing to hold together.

10. “Sk8er Boi” — Avril Lavigne. At 0:13 or so, and a number of times later in the song, there is a huge tom hit layered with a synth that descends to very low frequencies. On many monitors, all you hear is the tom hit, with no synth drop. The mix is also heavily compressed, which requires good clarity and detail from the monitors or ‘phones in order to reproduce all the elements clearly.

Listening to these ten songs gives me a really good idea of the performance of speakers and headphones. Notice that several are specifically selected to demonstrate low-frequency response; this is so critical in evaluating monitors and ‘phones.

Augmentation
I round out the above list with several other songs that I feel are simply great-sounding productions and that I know intimately — and with the talent behind the console, you’re hearing the work of masters of their art and craft. With my Top 10 list, I’m often only listening to a short snippet of the song (such as the intro on McLachlan’s “I Love You”). With these songs, I’ll listen to most or all of the cut, just to gain the experience of hearing it on the monitors or headphones.

“Healing Hands” — Marc Cohn (engineered by John Leventhal)
“Last Plane Out” — Toy Matinee (Bill Bottrell)
“Line ‘Em Up” — James Taylor (Frank Filipetti)
“Denial” — Sevendust (Toby Wright)
“Kiss from a Rose” — Seal (Trevor Horn)
“Runaway” — Sarah Jarosz (Gary Paczosa)
“Sway” — Diana Krall (Al Schmitt)
There are so many great-sounding productions out there, I rotate these selections constantly. I might expand this list with a big-band recording, an orchestral performance, and so on.

Play It Right
Whatever songs you choose, be sure that you’re playing them back with the best available quality. This means at least 16-bit/44.1 “CD-quality” files; I go for higher resolution if it’s available. Use the best digital-to-analog converter you have. The idea is to maximize the playback system to remove it from the equation; we want transparency so that we can focus on what’s happening with the speakers or the headphones.

Pick and Choose
Whether you use my Top 10 list or compile your own (which I recommend), make sure you know the songs inside and out. Figure out what each tells you about the speakers or ‘phones. Listen to them as much as possible in as many rooms and through as much different gear as you can. You’re not only evaluating monitors and headphones, but you’re also educating your ear and dialing in your hearing to specific things, and hearing great music in the process — what could be more fun!

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