Top of the Charts: The Songs the Sound Engineers Use to Tune Your Stereo

Car and Driver ^ | Published: Oct 23, 2021 | By Benjamin Hunting

[thecodont]

From the November 2021 issue of Car and Driver.

What's blasting from your car speakers, and more important, how does it sound? For sound-system engineers at the audio-equipment manufacturer Bose, a playlist is more than tracks that slap. To test stereos, they need songs representing a variety of sounds and recording techniques to make sure new systems can re-create a song with the depth of the original recording.

To have a common reference point, Bose engineers all over the globe share a master playlist. "Every system engineer knows these tracks inside and out," says Mark Armitage, head of the acoustical-engineering team at the company's Michigan field office. "It makes for a universal language we can use when testing and tuning."

Armitage says the 54-track Bose playlist is updated periodically, and engineers can use it alongside a smattering of their personal favorites or recent Grammy winners. He walked us through a few selections from his test list.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wow, the first song on their list “I Can See Clearly Now” by Holly Cole Trio is great. I just added it to my Spotify “Eclectic” list (songs I like from a wide variety of genres, many of which cannot be easily categorized).

[lee martell]

The Prophets Song sounds like a simplified version of
another Queen song called “March of the Black Queen” on an earlier album. “March” is brimming to overflowing with music, piano wars, guitar riffs and overlays of harmonies.

[jy8z]

I suggest Lucky Man by ELP.

[Getready]

“Sheffield drive” was an eclectic collection of songs and instrumentals on CD used to test out speakers. I would guess it would be best to have songs that demonstrate different types of sounds...voice(opera and pop). Symphonic music using a side variety of instruments, raw sounds like waves crashing, wind blowing, talking, yelling, sounds of tools, utensils, animal sounds,etc. Would desire the most realistic sounds with no distortion and no emphasis on any frequency . IMHO

[Bullish]

Are they kidding? No way!

[CaptainPhilFan]

Nice list. I remember audiophiles using Deacon Blues to tune stereo. I really miss having a good stereo system.

[CaptainPhilFan]

I had no idea Boz had more talent than Ledo until I accidentally found Somebody Loan Me a Dime some years ago.

So much music, so little time

[CaptainPhilFan]

Great tune! Or maybe Fanfare :)

You know the backstory of Lucky Man? I only learned it a few years ago.

[jy8z]

You know the backstory of Lucky Man?

No. I'd like to hear it.

[Roadrunner383]

JBL used to run a lot of ads in Rolling Stone showing control booths in music studios, the studios using JBL bookshelf speakers mounted overhead of the control panel. The ads were pretty impressive.

However, the studios were using JBL bookshelf speakers because the smaller JBLs represented the type speaker the average hi-fi enthusiast used, not because the JBL speakers were the absolute best you could buy (although they were pretty good).

As far as albums, the CD ‘Diesel and Dust’ by Midnight Oil came out in an era of mediocre sounding CDs (1987) and always stood out to me as an example of terrific sound engineering. I wonder if it still pops as much as it did then?

[Political Junkie Too]

I bought this CD decades ago to set the equalizer on my stereo system. It's been long discontinued.

Click on the image for details of the contents of the CD.

-PJ

[Jeff Chandler]

https://youtube.com/shorts/lN7janDgiYs?si=7fo9q04KWJkds4oI

[Gay State Conservative]

I have about 200 songs...all favorites...stored on my car’s hard drive. There’s room for a lot more and someday I’ll get off my a$$ and load them. Unlike some I don’t expect concert hall sound quality in my car...the basic sound system I have is good enough.

[The Louiswu]

“ I don’t expect concert hall sound quality in my car.”

My 2024 Honda CRV has a very good, off the shelf sound system in it and it’s sounds very good and gets very loud sometimes.

I got back into vinyl about 5 years ago and have been very selective about the albums I buy. New stuff is too expensive so I look in antique and vintage shops being very careful looking a disc over before I buy.

Onkyo receiver, JBL and a a pair of Polk Audio bookshelf speakers and a technics direct drive turntable. It’s nice to get up ever 12-15 min to flip sides but the experience is worth it.

[usconservative]

Either song by ELP gets my vote. I’m thinking we’re their only fans on here ...

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I had a quad system in my car back in 1980. I used “Moving in Stereo” to adjust balance. It worked pretyy well. There were very few tunes in actual quadrophonic.

[Gay State Conservative]

Thanks to having mastered "wav" files,CD burners and having access to a regional library system that has basically every music CD ever produced I now have a CD collection (or,more accurately,a CD-R collection) of about 5,000 songs...all of them favorites of mine (mainly 1960s). I've converted them into MP3s for my car and my cell phone.

Unlike some folks I divorced LPs long ago in favor of CDs. Better sound quality...portability...and you can play them a million times.

The only thing I miss about LPs are the jackets...many of which are certainly iconic.

[CaptainPhilFan]

I’ll let you read it for yourself, as told by Greg. :)

A little more than halfway down.

https://www.classicrockrevisited.com/show_interview.php?id=141

[CaptainPhilFan]

Read this second

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Man_(Emerson,_Lake_%26_Palmer_song)#:~:text=The%20origin%20of%20the%20song,acoustic%20version%20of%20the%20song.

[Sirius Lee]

Thanks for the link!