You get new speakers or you start your music library from scratch. Which is the first song/album you play?

For testing speakers, Infected Mushroom, Tame Impala and 20syl/AllttA are always good choices. Maybe Tool as well (10000 days). Song depends on what I'm most familiar with atm.

For a new library, I'd probably just choose whatever I listen to the most. Which would be The Fearless Flyers and Aesop Rock rn.

„Rumors“ by Fleetwood Mac.

One of the THX Deep Notes

Herbie Hancock - Chameleon

https://youtu.be/iqomTAiRnVM

Then listen to the whole Head Hunters album tbh

46 and 2

Led Zeppelin II in its entirety

Probably A Night at the Opera by Queen, which was the first album I ever bought with my own money. A ton of classic tracks, lots of tonal range, weirdass spatial effects from early-era screwing around with stereophonic production, and a hell of a good time any day of the week.

If I got new speakers, better quality ones than the ones for my old RCA thing or the ones in my Bria radio CD player thing, or even my beats headphones, I'd have a hard time choosing an album. Would probably go with whatever I'm in love with at the moment. Currently that's a 3 way tie between R.E.M.'s Out of Time, Alice in Chains Jar of Flies, and New Radicals Maybe You've Been Brainwashed. Would struggle to lick between those 3.

As for individual songs, I got a couple I'm currently absolutely in love with that I'd love to play on very high quality speakers:

Deafening - The Nixon Rodeo ( emotionally hard rock, at least I think so )

OR

Someday We'll Know - New Radicals ( for some reason this just became my absolute favorite New Radicals song immediately after hearing it once on CD )

DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

I have listened to this album more times than anything else I own. I'm on my third copy of it after wearing out the original pressing I have from the 90's and the repressing from 10 years ago. I know every sample, every soundscape, and it almost brings me to tears every time I drop the needle on it. So many memories of good times where this was the soundtrack. So many friends, now gone, walk next to me again when that album plays.

I miss you, Isaac.

Here's a screenshot of my headphone testing playlist. Songs I like, but also having either deep bass, bright highs, or both. Plus, they're songs I've listened to a million times, so I know how they're supposed to sound.

As for music I'd want to get first when starting over: Dark Side of the Moon.

New speakers? Maurice Ravel, "Bolero". No better music to test an audio system.

Bear with me on this one.

I like to use the maestoso from Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, often called the Organ Symphony, for testing speakers. Turn it way up and blast that organ sound. Also reminds me of the movie Babe since they used the theme from this movement for that movie. 😁

(Links below are YouTube Music, but I’m confident you can find the same recordings on Spotify.)

Here’s a good recording, listen to at least the first 1:45, though the full movement isn’t very long (a bit over seven minutes). Again, volume is your friend for this movement. It’s MAJESTIC, and on a good set of speakers it’s incredible.

Another good orchestral work for this type of showing off is Holst’s Jupiter, or the fourth movement of Dvořák’s New World Symphony

(There are many more but these are some relatively well-known-without-people-knowing-they-know-them ones.)

Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God

Guitar mass but infected mushroom.

If the speakers have no problem with that they'll play anything else I listen to

Dark Side of the Moon and now I feel old.

Never gonna give you up

Evil Empire by Rage Against the Machine

Hotel California by Eagles

Cat Stevens - Wild World

Jazzmataz vol. 1 by Guru

Sound and Fury - Sturgill Simpson.

Even god has a hell

Voodoo by Godsmack

Overture 1928 - Dream Theater

“A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” by Panic! At the Disco. It’s been my favorite album since it came out. I never get tired of it. Specifically “Camisado” is my favorite track on it.

Hells Bells by AC/DC.

I was in theatre school for a while. We touched on everything related to a theatre production, including sound. Our tech would always test his setup with Paul Simon's Getting Ready For Christmas Day.

I've heard that song used to calibrate audio setups so often that it's become easy to identify any issues when I hear it.

Dire Straits - Walk of Life.

Welcome to The Black Parade.

After restoring a vintage reciever, it was the first song thst made me feel, unprompted, that I had gotten it right.

"6:00" by Dream Theater. It begins with a sick drum fill that pans across stereo speakers and then builds up with drums, then keyboards, then guitar/bass. It sounds fantastic cranked up on a good set of speakers!

Polygamous by Breaking Benjamin. Followed by the rest of the Saturate album.

T.Rex - 20th Century Boy.

Well if im trying out new speakers, it's usually vega core from doom

If im playing new music in a playlist, it'd probably be something by quadeca tho.. maybe godstained, or Sisyphus

10.8 by Deadmau5 and Mr. Bill

Pure ear candy

Electric Ladyland

AC/DC - "Back in Black"

It's so cliche in the speaker world, but the live recording of Hotel California by The Eagles. On solid speakers, it is like you're there in the audience.

I'll find a few new songs to be the first in my new library. I love finding new music, and transitioning from one library to another helps me take some time away from songs that might be getting stale to focus on new stuff. It also gives me the opportunity to rediscover songs from previous libraries after some time, and fall in love with them again. Just today I added a song to my library that I used to have on my old iPod, and I'm listening to it a bunch now that it's been several years since I've last heard it.

Finlandia by Sibelius

Opeth - Blackwater Park

"Frank's Wild Years"

Florence + the Machine - June

Just to open it gently

Steely Dan - Aja

It's a perfectly mastered album from start to finish.

Lights - Ellie Goulding is my go to "is it working" followed by Black and Gold - Sam Sparro to balance my sub and Revelations (lyric video) - BVB to tell if my sub's balanced generally.

Gotta be "The Human Contradiction" by Delain. Not because it's the most technical test of the new equipment or anything, just because it's a fantastic album.

for testing new speakers and adjusting the equalizer, Megadeth - Trust

drums in the beginning for the low frequencies, followed by some nice guitar work for balancing the high ones

A Twink And A Redhead - Grant and Ash

Baroness - First&Second EP

https://chernobylandletharjisk.bandcamp.com/album/baroness-first-second-eps

If it doesn't sound too flat or too bassy and I want to bang my head to it, that's a deal.

colors by btbam

https://music.apple.com/us/album/put-me-under/1693342526?i=1693342534&ls=

Figueroa - Put Me Under

Death Cab for Cutie - Plans

Or

The Black Keys - Brothers

Fever Days by Snowmine. It's what I did when I got my first good set of headphones, and it was pretty magical.

Anything by Yello is good for testing new speakers. Planet Dada is a good one.

Max Cooper - Spike (The best benchmark I've ever heard)

If I want to impress people I play Mountains (Interstellar) by Hans Zimmer.

Tally Hall - Hymn for a Scarecrow

New Speakers → I don't do anything different

New music library from scratch - if we talk local → I fall back to my Bandcamp, Soundcloud, YouTube Music, or radio

Green Day - Jaded

For testing new speakers, this song: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Robbero/59698

Hey this just happened to me. I played Atlantic by Sleep Token to shop for then test speaker stuff

Big Tymers-Still Fly. It gets to a part where it goes “2 15’s didn’t see no wires, then I heard BOOM from the amplifier.” If the house/car doesn’t shake then it’s not enough bass.