do you have set songlist that you play through each set of headphones you come into contact with? Post your list! i dont have one and im going to take some ideas from this thread and form a headphone testing playlist.

Well, I'm not going to give you a song list, because you probably wouldn't know my songs as I listen to 95% trance/hard trance, however, I'd suggest that you listen to music you're VERY familiar with. That way, you know all the nuances, all the details of your track and are able to relate headphones which each other. Listening to music you don't know doesn't get you anywhere for comparison's sake, since the presentation is new anyway, so you don't know how they used to sound like, or what they should sound like.

I've been using Tool - Vicarious even though it's not the best recording. Lets me decide pretty quickly if the mid range is forward enough for my liking, and it has lots of ssss to listen for harshness. I like using Soil - Fight for Life for drums.

to add to what others said, i would also use high quality audio files or just cds, no 128kbps mp3s, the more details you hear the more differences you will see

Mostly some CDs with female vocals on them. Patricia Barber, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys and some Diana Krall. Maybe some Metallica to test a can's rock ability.

You should use a variety of genres to test headphones. Electronica is ideal for testing bass and highs (extension and resolution); rock/pop ideal for testing mids (due to the guitars and vocals); film soundtracks or classical for highs, dynamics, realism, and soundstage; and blues/jazz/soul just to round out the mix.

Stuff you know well, and "real" stuff. By that I mean acoustic stuff, so you can tell if the sounds you are hearing are anything true to real-life.

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You sound like a candidate for Sarah Brightman, she has seriously expanded my scope.

I like the album Damnation by Opeth. Their stuff is really well-recorded, the acoustic guitar work is awesome, and the album has a well-balanced, well-blended sound. Another album of theirs I like to use is Ghost Reveries, again, as it is well-recorded but it is more traditional prog metal and uses a lot more distortion, so it brings out texture and resolution more. If I could find a really good recording, I would think Holst's The Planets would be excellent. Neptune is my fav! For the all-important midbass character that is so critical to my fav genre of music, I'd go with something like the opening to Fear Factory's "Slave Labor", or anything busy with really tight bass drum rolls, like The Dillinger Escape Plan. For mids, Rush lays the unholy smackdown on all that challenge them

Really, anything that you know REALLY well works, and I usually go with what I have been listening to a lot recently. No set rotation of samples I use.

P.S. Pretty sure this thread has been done eleventy billion times by now

Aja by Steely Dan.

It has piano, sax, an amazing drum backup and nice vocals. There are so many layers and instruments it is amazing to hear what is reproduced by some equipment.

I try to stay away from artists like Diana Krall and Norah Jones, because they sound good on anything to me.

To follow that, ANYTHING by Steely Dan or Donald Fagen is superb for equipment benchmarking.

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Seconded.

EDIT: Errrr....thirded?

cds you know best and different types of music too

Hmmm... I don't have a list written down...
But off the top of my head:

Alison Krauss - Baby, Now That I've Found You
Hilary Duff - So Yesterday
T.I. - The Greatest
Bif Naked - Twitch
M2M - Girl In Your Dreams
陈依依 - 回音谷
Juvenile - Back That Azz Up
Hilary Hahn and Natalie Zhu - Mozart Violin Sonatas
Lil' Wayne - Go DJ
Yo-Yo Ma - Simply Baroque I&II - Bach & Boccherini
B.G. - Bling Bling(Radio Version)
南拳妈妈 - 消失
Britney Spears - Someday (I Will Understand)
Robbie Williams - Rock DJ
Sarah Brightman - The Last Words You Said
何以奇 - 让你飞
Nightwish - Sacrament of Wilderness
SWEETY - 爱的号码牌
Lil' Suzy - The Way I Love You
Rockell - When I'm Gone(Remix, not sure exactly what remix it is... but it's the most popular one)
川岛茉树代/Makiyo - 存钱
MC Hotdog - 我爱台妹
Gigi D'Agostino - L'amour Toujours
Enrique Iglesias - Be With You
Do - The day you went away
Backstreet Boys - I'll Never Break Your Heart
The Distillers - Hall of Mirrors
Bach - Partita No 3 in E for solo violin
City High - City High Anthem
Insane Clown Posse - The Unveiling
The Donnas - Pass It Around
'N Sync - Gone
Darling Violetta - A Smaller God
王力宏 - 大城小爱
潘玮柏 - 不得不爱
Third Eye Blind - Losing a Whole Year
Fin.K.L - Ethernal Love
Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode
Buckcherry - Lit Up
Daft Punk - Harder Better Faster Stronger(Breakers Break Remix)
Quake II Soundtrack - All tracks
Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
Celtic Woman - May It Be (I prefer this verion)
Sheryl Crow - Sweet Child of Mine (I prefer this version)
Guns and Roses - November Rain
Jennifer Love Hewitt - How Do I Deal
Starcraft Game Music Vol. 1 : Epilogue(Original Game Soundtrack)
Superchic[k] - Super Trouper
Lacuna Coil - To Myself I Turned
Kanye West - Gone
Marilyn Manson - I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)
Ciara - Goodies
Snot - Snot
Emma Bunton - What Took You So Long
Coolio - Too Hot
Within Temptation - Memories
Many Moore - Candy
Vanessa Mae - Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto
S Club Juniors - Automatic High
Shania Twain - That Dont Impress Me Much
Atomic Kitten - Right Now 2004
Christina Aguilera - Get Mine, Get Yours
Master P - Make Em' Say Uhh!
Body Head Bangers - I Smoke, I Drank
Gretchen Wilson - When I Think About Cheating
Q-Tip - Vivrant Thing
Petey Pablo - Freek-A-Leek
Young Jeezy Feat. Akon - Soul Survivor
G-Dep - Lets Get It
Avril Lavigne - Nobody's Fool
Wolfpak - Gansta Bounce
Trina - Don't Trip
杨丞琳 - 只想爱你

A good list I think

Whatever the hell I feel like listening to at the time.