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!
The remastered version of The Last Starfighter Soundtrack.
Although musically at times it sounds John Williams-eque, its arranged more like Wagner…doubled, tripled, even quadrupled brass and low strings parts.
It was a case of “more is good…even more is better!”
Anyway, the full length remastered version on CD from 2015 is amazing, and is one of my benchmark/testing CDs for the last few years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RQU9NpFKn8&list=OLAK5uy_n_v3rIrFWUjoGapAxk6KOAUXBldtyg32Y
I have a Tidal playlist aptly titled Audiophile Bullshit that I use to evaluate my systems. It starts out with London Calling, which is deceptively complicated to reproduce well. It dips through a catalog of music that I know well enough to spot differences in how the system is playing, it includes David Bowie, NIN, The Weeknd, Leonard Cohen, Beetles, Police, Doctor Dre, Nirvana, Billie Ellish and on and on. It’s like an hour and a half long and includes both good recordings and bad ones.
I really like using «gone shooting» by AC/DC,I can’t claim to know anything about audio setup or anything but that song generally at least has all the components to find out if a stereo system is making the right sound.
My favorite tunes to test the stereo are ones that are very rich in audio variety. Not too bass heavy and not shrill. I have a couple albums that are my go-to rather than songs.
Music Has the Right to Children by Boards of CanadaAnimals by Pink FloydLet Yourself be Huge by CloudkickerCrack the Skye by MastodonGood Apollo I’m Burning Star IV by Coheed and Cambria
I have a whole playlist which includes a random assortment from Bing Crosby and Marty Robbins, to Led Zeppelin and boston, to rammstein and system of a down, even some 80s new wave and broadway showtoons. But top of the list is Mr. Scary, and then Kashmir. They’ll find anything loose when played at an appropriate volume and give the speakers a good run for their money.
The 1986 Lincoln Town Car we (my parents) bought came with the Ford audio system demonstration tape so you didn’t have to figure this out. Duh
I’m actually looking at it now because I still have it along with 70+ other cassettes. It has a variety of songs including hits by Steve Perry and ‘Til Tuesday. I recall listening to “Voices Carry” many times while waiting in the car in a parking lot as a teen.
However, if I want to go back to memories of that car (not the assignment, I know), I’ll most likely turn on Rush – Power Windows or Hold Your Fire that my older brothers were playing at the time.
My go to bass tester is still “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. Great tester for a subwoofer.
A good one for clarity and high frequencies is “Breathe” by Bipolar.
This is oddly specific but a good song to test the bass/mid frequency pass over is “Kill the Noise” by Papa Roach. There’s a part in the middle that sounds like crap in a weak system. I’m not a sound engineer by any means but I think it’s in systems where the mid and bass speakers are the same. For lack of a better expression the speakers fight themselves and there’s a ton of distortion at higher volumes.
Like many, I use different tracks to test specific elements!
To test staging/surround,
See if you can follow the sound around without any major breaks
To test background elements, brightness, and low frequency bass definition, the Chicagoan hardcore drum and bass tune
Some systems will erase the hidden lows completely
For distortion, I usually lean toward any one digital hardcore track, but I like
Lots of thick, loud elements that often get mushed together on cheaper audio systems
To test vocals/timbre
Clear, smooth vocals and real percussion. Do they sound like they’re being played in front of you?
There’s lots more too, but I like to try getting some of these in during a test drive, if not other songs interchangeably.
Lots of great options already discussed so I’ll toss on a remastered version of “Good Vibrations” by The Beach Boys.
Lyle Mays – Before You Go
Techmaster P.E.B. – Do You Like Technobass?
Chevelle – Closure.
The first song tests the highs. A lot of car stereos decimate them, and if you can’t hear the electric piano very well on Before You Go, that means the stereo’s clipped the range above 5000Hz. Very not good for listening to music from before 1980.
The second song obviously tests the bass. But less importantly it tests the impulse. Some stereos will buzz at 0:46 because it snaps instantly between the mids to ultra low. Not really an issue, just more of a bragging point for the stereo if it doesn’t.
Third is Closure because the mixing on it on the original CD release is absolutely fucked. If your car stereo has Bose syndrome (No highs, no lows) this will sound like absolute garbage and you won’t be able to hear the lyrics on certain parts of the song. The electric guitars are the same volume as the bass guitar, bricking the low end, while the bass drum has a sidechain on it that pulls it out from the bottom, and the highhats are on either side and have had all the mids cut out of them. It sounds great on a proper system, but it’s truly an example of “An expert knows when they can break the rules.”
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?
People started listening to music on bad earphones starting in the late ’90s and it made everything tinny, so there wasn’t much stereo separation. Then smartphones came along and since they’re also tinny with the added detriment of having mono speakers, which it meant you couldn’t hear it with them either. Producers tell sound engineers to mix for the most common output.
Before the 1970s that was AM radio, which meant pushing everything into the mids and highs. Starting in the late 1970s FM radio became the common standard and so you could mess around with stereo panning because it had a higher bandwidth. In the 1980s and 1990s the common platform was Hi-Fi, the portable cassette players, and then CD players, which gave them more to work around with.
Gary Numan’s album Sacrifice is a direct result of the change in standards that the CD brought if you want an example.
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.
Oh yeah! I forgot about this one. Daydream was another one. Say what you will about her, but Mariah Carey’s albums were recorded really well, and you’re 100% correct about her range.
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.