Testing headphones isn’t a straight-up numbers game. The stats—battery life, frequency response, noise cancellation levels—all matter, but any expert will tell you that a listening test is where you really discover the most about a pair. I’ve been producing music for over a decade and testing headphones for several years now at the Good Housekeeping Institute Tech & Engineering Lab, so finding the sonic elements that tell me which pairs are the best has become second nature. But how can you do the same at home?
That’s where Spotify has come in to help: the world’s largest streaming platform has teamed up with Good Housekeeping to craft a playlist that can help you learn what to look for when giving a new pair a listen and how to tell the good ones apart from the mediocre. So, connect your device, open up the playlist, and read on for a guided tour of how to do your very own listening test at home.
How to Listen to this Playlist
Before hitting play, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got the proper set-up. With the headphone(s) you’re testing, disable any EQ settings or sound-enhancement features, including bass boost. Additionally, if you’re listening through Spotify, go into your settings, then “Media Quality” and ensure you’ve set the quality to lossless. This will help ensure that audio compression isn't limiting what you hear during your listening test.
When it comes time to sit down and listen, ensure your headphones and/or earbuds are secure and have a good fit on your head or in your ears. Fit can dramatically influence sound quality, especially bass response, so it's important to make sure your headphones or earbuds are positioned correctly. Finally, if you’re comparing multiple headphones at once, don’t listen to the entire tracks through. Instead, listen to the snippets we call out and switch between devices so you can get a detailed comparison while the previous model’s sound is still fresh in your mind.
Bass Extension
Bass extension is how a headphone reproduces the lowest frequencies in a piece of audio. Nicer headphones don’t just produce bass you can hear—they make bass you can feel.
SOPHIE, Flume & Eprom - Is It Cold In The Water? - Flume & Eprom Remix
Flume is known for his deep, earth-shaking bass lines, and this song features exactly that. During the drop at 1:51, the song introduces extremely deep sub-bass frequencies. On headphones with strong bass extension, these notes should sound full and powerful rather than thin or distant.
James Blake - Limit For Your Love
Another great track for testing bass extension, “Limit For Your Love” has a pulsating bass line that’s introduced at 1:51. It sounds almost like a pure, oscillating sine wave, meaning there’s very little midrange content that can sometimes mask genuine bass response. Good headphones should reproduce these notes with a sense of weight and depth, while weaker models may make them sound quieter and less impactful.
Joy Orbison - Flight Fm
A final test for bass extension, “Flight Fm” features dual bass lines that have been layered with white noise in the high end. At 1:23 the bass should sound full across the frequency spectrum. Headphones with weak low-end reproduction may emphasize the higher-frequency texture of the sound while losing some of the impact of the bass line underneath it.
Midrange Clarity & Separation
It’s easy to argue that the midrange is the most important portion of the frequency spectrum—most instruments, including vocals, occupy this range. Because so many musical elements occupy this range, one of the biggest things we're listening for is separation: can you clearly distinguish individual instruments and vocals, or do they blend together into a muddy presentation?
Olivia Rodrigo - Stupid Song
I love listening to songs that feature piano, vocals, and guitars to evaluate midrange muddiness. These instruments all occupy very similar frequency ranges, and “stupid song” has all of these elements occupying the spotlight at the same time. Good headphones will render this fullness clearly without feeling like you’re losing the impact of the drum’s crashes and hi-hats. Additionally, you should be able to hear all of the instruments playing distinctly. In lower quality headphones, you’ll lose the high-end detail and only be able to make out the vocals along with a general shape of the other instrument’s parts.
Underscores - The Peace
“The Peace” is another great midrange test track: Composed entirely of pitch-shifted vocals, much of the musical content occupies similar midrange frequencies. Because so much of the song lives in similar frequencies, headphones with uneven tuning can make the vocal layers sound congested or dull. Better-balanced headphones should make the harmonies feel distinct and clearly separated from one another.
Florence + The Machine - Dog Days Are Over
Another track with maximalist, acoustic production, “Dog Days Are Over” gradually grows from sparse instrumentation to a cacophony of piano, guitar, harp, claps, and vocal belting, much of which occupies the midrange. This arrangement can easily turn into a wall of sound in poorly tuned headphones, whereas each instrument should ideally remain individually intelligible.
Treble Balance
The treble (high frequency) response can be one of the most tell-tale aspects of a headphone’s quality. In our testing of headphones, we’ve found that some lesser headphones will feature harsh boosts in this area or resonant frequencies that can make listening to content with lots of treble information grating or painful. Treble should ideally render clarity and an “airiness” to music without sounding harsh, piercing, or fatiguing.
D’Angelo - Untitled (How Does It Feel)
The guitar part at 4:32 of this song has a very bright, present high end that can ring and sound painful in headphones that have a poorly tuned treble. Ideally, the guitar should cut through the rest of the elements and sound considerably brighter than much of the content here without being uncomfortable or even painful to listen to.
Thundercat - Them Changes
The persistent and prominent hi-hat line throughout this song provides a great means of assessing high frequency response. Ideally, the hi-hats should sound bright and forward in the mix without any harshness or excessive sizzle. Headphones with weaker treble response will make them quieter whereas those with strange peaks or over-emphasis will make them difficult to listen to.
Dynamics
Dynamics describe the difference between the loudest and quietest moments in a recording. Good headphones should be able to accurately reproduce the variation in loudness in a song, keeping quiet parts soft yet audible, and making loud parts feel substantive.
John Williams, London Symphony Orchestra - The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme)
Symphonic compositions tend to be great for assessing dynamics. Orchestral composers often make use of extreme dynamic variations in ways you won’t find in modern pop compositions. When listening to this piece, pay attention to how much quieter the song gets at 0:47. You should feel a drastic change in volume. Additionally, the plucked strings in the right ear should feel substantially louder than the flute at first, which gradually crescendos to match its volume.
Transients
Transients are the quick bursts of sound that occur at the beginning of notes, such as a drum hit, hand clap, or guitar pluck. Headphones with strong transient response reproduce these sounds clearly and help music feel punchy and energetic.
Frank Ocean - Thinkin Bout You
Transients are an important part of this track. Listen to the kick drum, along with the snare fill that occurs right before the line “cause I’ve been thinking ‘bout forever,” in this track: do these elements stand out clearly from the rest of the track? It should feel snappy in a good-sounding pair of headphones.
Steely Dan - Peg
Older recordings often preserve drum attacks more naturally than heavily processed modern productions, making them useful for evaluating transient response. Steely Dan’s “Peg” has a lively drum beat with a punchy attack. Every element of the drums—the rides, snare, and kick—should feel like they jump out at you when you’re listening.
Stereo Imaging
Stereo imaging describes how accurately headphones place sounds within a recording. On a good pair, instruments and vocals feel like they're occupying distinct locations rather than blending together, making it easier to tell where sounds are positioned in the mix.
Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place
Listen to the looping key line that spans the stereo field. On a good pair of headphones it will feel “wide,” meaning it feels like it’s playing all around your head. The vocal snippets at 0:20 should appear in clearly defined positions on either side of your head and feel roughly equal in volume. Finally, the lead vocal at 0:37 should feel like it’s positioned in the direct center of your head. As you listen to this track, you should look to feel a vivid, wide environment thanks to the panning (positioning) of the various musical elements.
Sound Profile
When we refer to the “shape” of sound produced by headphones, we really mean the overall frequency response or sound profile. Headphone manufacturers all have different approaches to crafting this shape: Some try to adhere as closely to the Harman curve as possible, whereas other brands pride themselves on having “in-house” sounds that are unique. This is the most subjective area of an already subjective listening test. What you’re trying to understand is the full picture of a headphone’s sound and compare it head-to-head with others.
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
Typically, I recommend listening to tracks you know extremely well to assess the sound profile of a pair of headphones. The more familiar you are with a recording, the easier it becomes to identify subtle differences in tuning, detail, and balance between headphones. For anyone new to listening tests, I like to recommend very simple songs that feature as few instruments as possible. The simplicity can help make the differences in sound a lot more obvious. Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” does this form of simplicity great for comparison, with a simple guitar line and vocal melody for much of the song. As you listen in different headphones, pay attention to how different parts of it are emphasized.
The Big Picture
No individual song will be able to tell you everything about a pair of headphones, which is why Spotify helped us craft this playlist to cover several listening tests. Great headphones should perform well across all of them, delivering deep bass, clear vocals, balanced treble, convincing dynamics, and a sound profile that suits your preferences.
