OUR 10 FAVOURITE TEST TRACKS OF 2024

What Hi-Fi? reviewers share tracks they used for testing hi-fi in the past year

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We hi-fi reviewers all have our go-to test tracks; songs we know better than the back of our hands that allow us to identify certain (often many) aspects of a component or system’s performance. Many of the less obscure ones are referenced in What Hi-Fi? reviews so that readers can, if they so wish, follow our descriptions of how that product delivers the song, at home or during a demo.

Below is a selection of test tracks our review team used most in the past year, a mixture of new releases, oldies-but-goodies that are never far from our Tidal ‘Recently Played’ rotation, and those we have picked up at hi-fi shows (because that's always a given). So if you've got new kit or are simply looking for new music inspiration, this list will hopefully give you a nugget or two.

Meute

You & Me (Flume remix)

Any piece of kit we have come across this year with a commanding presence has simply had to be fed You & Me by Meute. The 11-piece German ‘techno marching band’ uniquely fuses beats with brass to put its own spin on techno and house mixes from well-known DJs. And, as you might imagine from an ensemble of such description, their cover of Flume's creative take on the popular Disclosure track is a concoction of melody-setting saxophones, trumpets, trombones and horns above a driving drumbeat (which uses a rototom in there somewhere!).

Its delivery absolutely demands top-class dynamic expression and scale, as well as low-end tautness and punch during the most theatrical displays of brass and percussion. But perhaps most important is a system's top-end transparency, so that the bells can ring out with apt shrillness without overshadowing the details within them.

Max Richter

Never Goodbye