You know the deal: a certain banger comes on the radio (sorry, I can’t bring myself to say “the streaming service”) and you are legally obligated to crank it. Sadly, that one particular track exposes the limits of your sound system. Inevitably, you’ll use this same cut to test the tunes in other cars you drive, or are considering plopping down money on. What could be more important when buying a car? The Car Radio Test Song is key for any real subjective automotive analysis.
Before I got my first “real” car in the late nineties, I inexplicably daily’d a black, 200,000 mile 1988 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series to my first professional job. Despite all of its typical Ford Panther shortcomings exacerbated by several round trips to the moon, the factory JBL audio system within could replicate the sound of a person in the trunk banging on the rear seat back with a baseball bat while you sat on a couch identical to what you see below. It was glorious.
This was especially true when playing music from a compact disc, which in the case of these medieval years meant the CD’s ones and zeroes were transmitted by a Discman sitting on the transmission tunnel tray, plugged into one of the three cigarette lighters and interfacing with the head unit via a cassette tape adapter. The Town Car rode so smoothly that the player didn’t skip, though half of you readers are likely too young to even know what I’m even talking about.
Still, even with the low fidelity of the radio, you could easily get trim pieces vibrating annoyingly. Return Of The Mack over the airwaves would get a terrible buzzing going in one of the front doors, and no matter how many times I investigated as the bass thumped, I could not for the life of me figure out what was the cause.
A station playing Breathe by The Prodigy caused me to pull over, stop the car, turn up the volume, and try to source exactly what the hell was rattling on the package shelf, dash top, or doors, despite tightening every screw I could see and shoving business cards into gaps.
Anything by The Crystal Method caused the loose thermometer on the driver’s mirror to bounce up and down.
It was all extremely annoying. Thankfully, the $20,000, 98,000 mile Mercedes S-Class that replaced the Lincoln solved the issue by having what was quite possibly the worst-sounding stereo I have ever experienced in a motor vehicle. No more rattles, and no more bass or treble for that matter. “Problem solved.”
How about you? What are your favorites for testing the stereo in a car? Are you going to fess up to playing the acoustic Hotel California to push your speaker’s limits (apparently that tune is a favorite for stereo analysis) or will you select some deep track to show us how much of an I’m-so-cool scenester you are? The Autopian is asking!
Pink Floyd “Money” or Lou Reed “Take a Walk on the Wild Side”
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on CD.
“exacerbated by several round trips to the moon”
Sorry to be “that guy”, but the distance from the earth to the moon is something close to 240,000 miles, so the Town Car didn’t quite make it to the moon.
My personal favorites are The Sinister Minister (Bela Fleck and the Flecktones) for checking highs and lows, and Leave It (Yes) for checking balance. The Prophet Song by Queen also works well
Whatever happened to songs like The Prophet Song (or Doobie Brothers’ Black Water) that moved around in headphone space?
My Discman didn’t skip in my ’85 VW Jetta. I had the nice one with the 5 second buffer and the remote. 🙂 That car also got my first in-dash CD-player, a JVC that cost something stupid like $750 and DID skip frequently. And was stolen in Montreal.
I think my current favorite car test album is the Counting Crows Across a Wire – Live in NY. Both my Mercedes and BMW wagons have the Harmon/Kardon stereo upgrades, and sound quite good, though the BMW is notably better. The base system in my BMW 128i convertible is fine too, 2011 got an eight speaker setup that was a big step up from the previous year.
One thing I like about more modern cars is factory stereo systems that don’t suck. I wasted SOOO much money, time, and energy on car stereo in my misspent youth, and like new cars, current aftermarket car stereos as a rule have horrific user interfaces.
Although I’m a Rock + Metal guy, I’ll admit to using Mariah Carey’s Music Box CD to set up quite a few car audio systems back in the day.
Very clean sound. Good bass. Plus, the range of her voice was phenomenal.
Another killer record to test acoustic timbre and fidelity is The rain is a handsome animal by Tin Hat.
I love my Acura, but it came with the “premium sound system” (not my pick, I bought it used) and it sounds like ass. And it can’t be upgraded, except the speakers. Maybe I should just do that. I’d take any suggestions from people with more experience.
B.O.B. by OutKast for bass testing purposes.
This is my go-to when testing any kind of audio equipment (home, car, headphones, interface, etc)
https://youtu.be/NC2ElsoRZec
Thick tones, punchy and loud drums, crisp bass, dense spectrum. The whole album is like that.
Van Halen.
Poundcake.
You could make those speakers really more (or distort) if you had a Discman with the “Mega Bass” setting… Coming from a former basshead who dabbled in bass from about 16-25…
“Still, even with the low fidelity of the radio, you could easily get trim pieces vibrating annoyingly”
What does low radio fidelity have to do with making annoying trim buzz?
“How about you? What are your favorites for testing the stereo in a car?”
IIRC somewhere I have an old THX CD with clips chosen specifically for testing sound system limits
A combination of Ministry and Jethro Tull tell me all I need to know about a sound system.
Jack of Speed by Steely Dan, and Hotel California from the Hell Freezes Over album. I have a playlist just for this topic, actually, and looking forward to trying some of the suggestions I see in these comments.