Idea: Standardized Test CD

[shoeblade]

I have an Idea. What if we came up with a standardized test CD (or flac, ape, whatever) to put headphones through their paces. I have the means to put something like that together, but I'll need ideas on what to include. We should be able to use snippets of music tracks under fair use. In headphone reviews, each track could be given a rating on that pair of headphones (1 to 5 or something). So the headphones could suck at jazz but be good for electronic music, etc.

What do you think?

Ideas so far:
1-25,000 Hz sweep
Burn in tracks

[SoundGoon]

Sounds like a great idea! Also might be a good idea (don't know if you had this in mind or not) to include some tracks with material for burn-in. I don't know if there is a cd already out there for this or not, but I don't know of it and would be interested in this one

[damballah]

I think it's a great idea, especially to have all of head-fi's reviews based on the the same source material.

[Roger.McMurphy]

Would be really hard to make, but why not give it a try?

[en480c4]

Reviews should be made with music the person reviewing knows well. Considering the varied tastes found here, I find it highly unlikely that a single CD could cover the full range. I guess I would trust that reviewers will choose well-recorded music they know to allow them to judge the subtle (and not-so subtle) changes between equipment.

What I do know is that I would have zero interest in using a disc like that. I have a wealth of music at my fingertips that I know well. That allows me to detect the changes I make. What's more is that it is music I love, so it keeps listening fun.

I certainly won't argue with someone who would use such a thing, but to be honest I find a lot of the music used in reviews cringe-worthy. However, while I would never want to use some of those tracks myself, I can take a great deal of info from reviews using those tracks because it's music the the reviewer knows well. That allows me to trust their conclusions.