The people who make my headphones, HEDD recommend this list for auditioning studio and HiFi gear.
Do not want to link, but Google “test tracks for heddphone 2” and then follow the Head Fi link
"We listen to a lot of speakers and headphones, and work with amazing studios around the world, so with this in mind we wanted to share some of our go-to reference tracks with you, the ones that give us a solid foundation to work from when we’re exploring new ideas, quality-checking new builds, or listening in new locations.
We hope they also spark something new in your own listening adventures. You can hear all the reference tracks we’ve chosen on our TIDAL playlist here.
Beck - Paper Tiger
With a super raw approach, closed mic’ed kick drum and voice, this track unveils imbalances in the lower mid range while the high saturation of instruments in the chorus really help to show the dynamic capabilities and separation of HEDD monitors. We also use it in HEDDphone QC for evaluating tuning, neutrality, and separation.
Grace Jones - Slave to the Rhythm
Lots of high end which makes this a great reference track to hear tonal imbalances, as well as spot harshness and peaks.
The Acid - Animal
This track is another favorite as it has a lot of image and spatial information, depth and impulse response which is ideal for testing.
Gregory Porter - Hey Laura
Great to test the balance between left and right channels.
Fink - Perfect Darkness
This one is perfect for evaluating tonal balance, transients, high mid range, and high end.
Tord Gustavson Trio - Karmosin
We use this track to evaluate the HEDDphone’s resolution and distortion responses.
Moderat - Running
This is the perfect track to test the Air Motion Transformer in the HEDDphone with its combination of bass, sub, and transients!
Lorde - Royals
A great pop song to evaluate depth and stereo image.
The Bad Plus - 1983 Regional All Stars
A lot of product tuning revolves around acoustically recorded music. This raw jazz recording is very intimate and effect-free, it offers a view on the actual live sound of every instrument, combined with great separation and fine dynamics on the drum track. You can use it to hear how the frequency range unfolds from dark to bright.
Kendrick Lamar - DNA
A rap classic that lets you test the boundaries of distortion and sub responses.
Bad Bad Not Good - In your eyes
With its female vocal and separation of instruments, including strings, alongside analog saturation this is one of the go-to tracks for evaluating how a modern approach to vintage recording aesthetics translates into our products.
BartĂłk - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado)
Bartók’s second piano concerto, especially the first movement, is incredibly fast on the piano part, with lots of additional (mostly brass and woodwind) instruments sharing large parts of the frequency range at the same time, all recorded in the same room. Only an excellent loudspeaker or headphone is able to reproduce this music and capture the instrumental separation, small dynamic changes, and overall sonic complexity.
At the same time, this recording is very bright and clean compared to many classical orchestra recordings, which creates a shine on the high-frequency range of the piano, high strings, and brass. A great reference track for hearing very fine details and enjoy the openness and resolution of the HEDD AMT driver.
Erik Satie - Mort de Socrate (Barbara Hannigan, Reinbert de Leeuw)
A very intimate sounding recording of piano and voice, with beautiful natural reverb, it feels like you are sitting right next to the musicians. This makes it a great reference track to identify harshness and tonality issues. It’s also great to really focus on sonic details, as this mesmerising movement is very repetitive, made of just a few short segments that are constantly shuffled and put together in new combinations.
D’Angelo - Send It On
The punch, layering, and separation of bass and sub in this soul classic makes it our go-to for cutting through all the noise at trade shows! It’s also a widely loved classic that always starts conversations."
