THE BEST GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY TRACKS TO TEST YOUR HI-FI SYSTEM

What Hi-Fi?'s own Awesome Mix Tape will give your stereo set-up a good run out

With Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 now streaming on Disney Plus, we have compiled our own Awesome Mix Tape, featuring songs used in the movies that we consider to be great test tracks for your system. There will be plenty here to challenge your set-up to perform at its best, and it fits perfectly onto both sides of a C60 cassette, too.

Radiohead – Creep (Acoustic) 

While we often use Radiohead tracks when we test hi-fi, they are usually of the more sonically dense variety, to judge a set-up’s organisational coherence. Here we have a rare acoustic test track, that is used to great effect in the sombre opening scene of Guardians 3. Provided your system has plenty of detail resolution you should get every, teary emotional ounce of Yorke’s performance of the band’s early break-out song, conveyed with absolute commitment in every aching syllable and rasped frustration. In the meantime, each string slide and squeak from the closemic’d acoustic guitar should be reproduced with utmost clarity, while you can feel the space around the musicians and imagine the radio studio it was performed in. The ability to convey intimacy and nail the reproduction of emotive performances like this will really prove your stereo’s worth.

Heart – Crazy On You