When reviewing or testing out speakers, whether it’s a compact Bluetooth speaker, a set of bookshelf speakers, or a huge, powerful party speaker, having a consistent process and some dependable points of reference is key. While every speaker and speaker type is different, it’s important to have a baseline that’s used to help compare speakers, determine their strengths and weaknesses, and answer some key questions to help you, our readers, determine if they’re right for you and worth your hard-earned money.
Everyone’s musical tastes are different, and while I use a wide range of musical genres to put speakers through the wringer — I have a basic series of playlists targeting bass, mids, and trebles, for example — there are some favorite tracks that I gravitate to more than others, especially at the beginning of the testing process, that cover off much of what I need to know before I get more specific.
The key with these tracks, and that should be for you too when you’re shopping for speakers, is familiarity and enjoyment. I know all of these songs very well and how they’re supposed to sound. I’ve chosen them for specific reasons and I’ve heard them through all kinds of speakers and systems. Oh, and I really like them all, which emphasizes the whole point of it, really — it’s fun.
So without further ado, here are 5 of my favorite tracks for testing speakers.
Anything off Radiohead’s OK Computer
I know, this isn’t a song, so I’m off to a great start aren’t I? The point here is to explain that whenever I start testing out a speaker or turntable or another audio product, I always start with something really familiar. For me, I know this Radiohead magnum opus inside-out — it’s in my top 3 all time favorite, desert island albums (I’ll never pick just one).
That said, of course things always start with the album’s first track, Airbag. From the opening percussive guitar riff, I can set all kinds of baselines. Not only is the guitar on its own and not competing with any other instruments so I can hear it clearly, but it’s also panned to the right, making it easier to hear the twinkly guitar picking that emerges in the left speaker (assuming I’m not testing a Bluetooth speaker).
The drums come in a few bars later with a snare fill and cymbal crash, and there’s all kinds of cool hi-hat work that gives me an early sense of how the speaker handles attack and if the highs are clear.
Then comes Thom Yorke’s angelic vocals at the 10-bar mark, giving me a sense of the vocal mid-range and I get to check for any messiness in the “j’s” when he sings “jackknifed juggernaut.” Around the same time, the bass line kicks in and I check for its accuracy and fullness. And as the layering builds there’s a great slightly-dirty rhythm guitar strumming that lets me know how the mids are tuned on the speaker. A pair of speakers I recently reviewed, the Fluance Ri71 bookshelf speakers, displayed this well.
This is all within the first 40 seconds of the track, which gives me four more minutes of this brilliance. By the end of the song I have a good idea where the speakers are at, and I’m well situated to throw some more specific things at it.
The Beatles, Blackbird
In keeping with the familiarity rule, not only is this a McCartney classic, but I like it because its stripped-down simplicity resets things sonically and gives my ears a break as well. It’s not noisy, nothing is competing, and you can hear everything clearly. Plus, the acoustic guitar is a natural instrument that, as a guitar player of more than 35 years, I’ve heard a lot, which allows me to really check a speaker’s authenticity — does it sound like an acoustic guitar? Great, let’s continue.
All the nuances can come out, like the chirps and slides of Paul’s fingers on the strings (and the chirping blackbirds!), and the tapping of his foot on the wood floor at Abbey Road studio. And the vocals are, well, so intimate and honest that you can really listen for Paul’s breath sounds and clean esses and t’s. The points in the “Blackbird fly,” choruses where the vocal tracks are doubled, add a nice thickness, and the climaxes where Paul sings “Into the light…” allow you to hear how the speaker handles those peak levels.
Because it’s such a quiet song, you can also take note of how clean the silences are — is the speaker noisy, is there any static or hum? It’s an excellent song and easy on the ears for the next steps.
Billie Eilish, xanny
This is my go-to track for getting an idea of how a speaker handles bass. Or, more specifically, those delicious sub-bass frequencies that sit between 20Hz to 40/50Hz. I have a whole playlist that I cycle through (with go-tos like Massive Attack’s Angel and even Dead Prez’s ridiculous Hip-Hop tune) for testing across the bass ranges, but I just love how xanny and a lot of Billie and Finneas’ songs play with frequencies in this range.
The track’s opening bass notes are quieter and clean, giving a nice smooth tone that is a good place to start for me, no matter the speaker I’m testing. The true test comes at around the song’s 35-second mark when I like to push the volume, especially on bigger, louder amplifier setups and my favorite — party speakers. Xanny’s sub frequencies are incredible at shaking you to your core, if the speaker/system has the means.
The song has beautiful peaks and valleys of quiet, mostly vocally-driven sections where even Billie’s breathy, close-mic style sits at the bottom of the mid-range. And when that gorgeously distorted bass spills over into Billie’s line at 1:04, “Don’t give me a xanny, now or ever” it’s one of my favorite sounds, if the speakers do it justice. The song is just so well balanced and well produced, there’s a reason it’s a go-to. Her track Ilomilo is another great bass tester.
Alice In Chains, Them Bones
As a Gen-Xer who grew up with Grunge mainlined to my veins, when I want to test out how a speaker handles heavy guitars and mid-range punch, there’s obviously no shortage of options. But one that I tend to go-to a lot is this diddy from Seattle’s sultans of somber, Alice In Chains.
From the first strum, Them Bones, the album’s opener, jabs you in the face with Jerry Cantrell’s chugging guitar and Layne Stayley’s primal scream. From there it’s an orchestrated wall of growling guitars and even more-impressively growling vocals from Stayley, mixed with the unique 4th and 5th vocal harmonies of Cantrell that gave AIC their signature monks-chant air of dark vocals.
It’s a mid-frequency dream, and I like to use it to hear how well Stayley’s screams and guttural yelps stand out in the mix. It also has one of the best guitar solos of all time, with a tone that sears through the distortion and uses the entire fretboard of the guitar, right up through to the higher registers past the twelfth fret, letting you hear how well the speaker deals with piercing tones. Many do not handle the change very well and things can sound flat and one-dimensional as a result.
John Williams, Star Wars: A New Hope Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
I’m not gonna lie, I’ve never been into classical or orchestral music, but I am definitely aware that it’s some of the best music to play when checking out what a speaker, or a set of them, can do. For this, I again turn to what I know like the back of my hand — Star Wars.
Orchestral music is an excellent choice for listening to a range of instrumentation — from delicate flutes and clarinets to French horns and strings that build and swell, to big tubas, bassoons, and timpanis that bellow. The mixing is always very dynamic, too, with loads of isolated left and right panning and placements that allow the music’s soundstage to make it feel like you’re in the auditorium with its high ceiling and spaciousness. I mostly listen to this when testing stereo speakers so you can spread them apart them adequately and really get the spatial sense.
Standout tracks on the Star Wars soundtrack are, of course, the opening Main Title theme, which sounds great, especially in a huge room (I like to crank it). I’ve done this with big tower speakers set up 10 feet apart, and the huge 1,100-watt JBL PartyBox Ultimate party speaker that nearly blew the roof off my house. It was excellent.
But I think my favorite track is Ben’s Death and TIE Fighter Attack. Its opening, super-familiar French horn beginning is haunting as Ben sacrifices himself to Darth Vader. And then the whole track gives way to a rollercoaster of strings, horns, timpani, and more, as Luke, Leia, and Han escape the Death Star on the Millennium Falcon. It’s quiet, it’s loud, it’s energetic, and excellent to listen to loud on a great set of speakers, just like I hope all of these tracks are when you use them to put any new speaker you’re considering to the test.
Enjoy!
