What are your test tracks for new audio hardware?

I'm stupidly simple in my taste for this

For music I use this to test

The Eagles - Hotel California - Hell freezes over 1994
The Who - Baba O'Riley
Pearl Jam - any song from Binaural (since it was recorded a la binaural
Paul Oakenfold - Delerium the Silence (cause I used to listen to a SHIT ton of trance music)

Movies -

Heat gun scene
Master and Commander Farside of the world
John Wick 1
Intersteller
 
I just listen to pink noise and do a quick FFT calculation in my head.
 
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Good grief. I haven't tested audio in years. Way back in the day when I thought I needed bump in the trunk I had some test cds. Simple minds Bass 305 and stuff.

I should dig that stuff out of storag and see what my current stuff rates.
 
Play any of these with a subwoofer, with a shitty one, and without.





 
Also I would not trust any online music streaming for quality assessment. My AKG K140's are budget headphones and are more than enough to expose compression sound artifacts and reduced soundstage of sites like spotify and youtube.

Keep in mind audio is a personal preference, and in the end, if you are happy with what you hear then there is no real need to spend more than what you like. There is no magic technology that will make music sound that much better to justify the costs involved. Unlike our normal [H] hobby, this one has major diminishing returns on investment due to our hearing not all being the same and our hearing ALL going down with age.

Also the "audiophile" community I have found to be pretty toxic. You will see people rip into people's preferences to no end with loads of bullshit data that doesn't represent the "experience" of listening.
 
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Slade said:
Also I would not trust any online music streaming for quality assessment. My AKG K140's are budget headphones and are more than enough to expose compression sound artifacts and reduced soundstage of sites like spotify and youtube.

Keep in mind audio is a personal preference, and in the end, if you are happy with what you hear then there is no real need to spend more than what you like. There is no magic technology that will make music sound that much better to justify the costs involved. Unlike our normal [H] hobby, this one has major diminishing returns on investment due to our hearing not all being the same and our hearing ALL going down with age.

Also the "audiophile" community I have found to be pretty toxic. You will see people rip into people's preferences to no end with loads of bullshit data that doesn't represent the "experience" of listening.
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Audio is a matter of taste. Some like tube amps, some like to play disco from PA speakers. I do both. PA speakers with huge horn bass at the garden and hifi inside.
 
Not youtube if testing audio-quality (look into how bad it acutally is)...I tend to use classic music from a DVD-A.
 
Youtube audio has got much better than it was. But it's all compressed so if you see some channels advertise FLAC, Lossless or HD audio - you get only compressed audio from Youtube.

In reality most people can not notice the difference between a lossless and high bitrate MP3/AAC compression. The differences between speakers are by orders of magnitude larger in comparison so even Youtube can be used for system evaluation.
 
B00nie said:
Youtube audio has got much better than it was. But it's all compressed so if you see some channels advertise FLAC, Lossless or HD audio - you get only compressed audio from Youtube.

In reality most people can not notice the difference between a lossless and high bitrate MP3/AAC compression. The differences between speakers are by orders of magnitude larger in comparison so even Youtube can be used for system evaluation.
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I hear the compression on the radio these days. it bothers me to no end. Ruined most FM channels for me.
 
B00nie said:
Youtube audio has got much better than it was. But it's all compressed so if you see some channels advertise FLAC, Lossless or HD audio - you get only compressed audio from Youtube.

In reality most people can not notice the difference between a lossless and high bitrate MP3/AAC compression. The differences between speakers are by orders of magnitude larger in comparison so even Youtube can be used for system evaluation.
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You forget about the multiple transcodes done on youtube audio...it cannot be used if serious about audio quality.
 
Factum said:
You forget about the multiple transcodes done on youtube audio...it cannot be used if serious about audio quality.
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Well I can tell you that I can easily tell a good system from a bad one even when playing Youtube. The purpose of a sound system is, after all, to play back any sound you throw at it. So lossy or lossless - it has to sound as good as the media is.
 
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viscountalpha said:
I hear the compression on the radio these days. it bothers me to no end. Ruined most FM channels for me.
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That wasn't the kind of compression I was talking about. The dynamic compression used on radio stations is indeed horrible but that's not what Youtube uses.

Youtube uses lossy data compression which preserves the signal dynamics but removes a lot of information from the sound that humans don't hear so well psychoacoustically. Blind tests have shown that most people can't tell any difference between an uncompressed and compressed recording once the bitrate exceeds 240kbit/s (on mp3, some other codecs are even more efficient).
 
Remember, don't buy audio systems backwards: the most important part of any audio system, analog or digital, is the speakers or the headphones or transducers or whatever the fuck you wish to call the devices responsible for producing the audio your ears then vibrate because of. :)

Seen it for decades, people spending oodles of bundles of huge piles of cash on all sorts of crazy overpriced tech and then using the lamest speakers or headphones and it's laughable. Those are the most important components in the audio reproduction chain, so don't skimp on 'em. You could have the best audio hardware in existence but if you're using crappy speakers or headphones, well, there ya go.

Also, FM radio stations have used limiters forever, but they started using MP2 audio compression about 25 years ago - MP3 is actrually a misnomer because it's technicaly MPEG-2 (hence MP2) Layer III (the third variant). MP2 audio compression used by FM radio stations uses Layer II and have done so for a very long time. It's "good enough" for audio broadcasting because they know it's still going to be subject to the audio being fed into compressors and limiters before it gets to the FM transmitter to be piped to the transmitting antenna.

Yes it sucks, but that's how it goes.
 
Radio stations use both limiters and compressors. Limiters and compressors have different functions. A limiter (as its name implies) limits the audio signal after a set threshold (in db) is reached. Limiting helps to protect speakers from over excursion and signal clipping. A limiter does not affect the dynamic range of the sound signal until the signal is loud enough for the clipping to start. Signal compression then again reduces the dynamic range of audio at all volumes. In practice this makes any audio it's being applied to sound louder. Radio stations have had so called loudness wars for ages, they believe that the station that sounds loudest wins.

As a result the stations apply heavy compression to the sound, making the quiet parts of sound almost as loud as the loudest sound. If you boost a singers voice like this, it makes the sound 'bigger' and usually clearer which is why vocals are often compressed during mastering in popular music.

The two techniques above should _not_ be mixed with MPEG compression which does not compress the audio signal dynamics, it removes inaudible parts of the sound signal instead.
 
I run a Physically Modelled set of Electric Pianos and Acoustic Pianos with 2 different types of Reverb @96k.
Old Digital AES/EBU connected, and newer DSP Based algorithms.
I listen to them over Blue Sky Surround 5.1 and also JHAudio IEMs with 24 way Drivers, grouped in Quad Drivers x3.
In other words, each ear gets 12 Drivers. Highs are covered by 4, mids by 4, and lows by 4.

I would love a nice truck or car, but I drive old cheap vehicles so I can afford 3500 dollar sound cards, 2700 IEMs and 6000 dollar Surround nearfields.

Someday I’d like a post 2000 F-150.
But I record lost of music, so my addictions are limited.

But, one could still run the Pianos I use and use built in FX (mediocre) and some decent AKGs or Sennheisers.

Just think of the 88 notes as an EQ.
Lowest notes would be your Sub freqs, highest notes the high end.
Play in every octave, and if you don’t need equalization your Audio Card and Drivers are pretty good.
 
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