I may be opening a can of worms but does anyone agree that to properly evaluate headphones etc. classical music or some jazz is the best source.
How can you judge the sound of anything using rock ,acoustic guitars or heavy metal.Most popular music is equed so much that you cant tell what it is supposed to sound like.
When i go to symphony hall and hear the real thing I have a pretty good idea of how good or poor my audio system is.
A case in point;when I return from a concert I usually back off on the bass control a bit ( but this could be due to room resonance).
With the er4's I have come closest to the real thing except of course for the headphone separation of the channels and lack of ambience in the concert hall.
For me the most challenging task for headphones is to reproduce the gorgeous string tone or massed sonorities of the sym. orch. not to mention the delicate timbers or nuance of a chamber group.

What if you don't listen to classical or jazz? If your music library consists of highly eq'd music, you're gonna want a headphone that plays it back to your liking. Finding a truly revealing headphone might be a big disappointment for the pure rock listener when he/she hears how poorly their music collection was recorded.

If you're looking for a headphone for accuracy, I'd agree that classical or jazz would be good to include in your set of evaluation discs. But I've also heard some truly awful sounding classical and jazz recordings.

There's also a group out there that claims to know the true sound of a Strat, a Telecaster, a Rickenbacker, Hammond, etc., and they've already identified a personal library of recordings that produce those instruments well.

Wouldn't it be great to have a recording of an instrument or performance you were there to hear in person, and then play it back for evaluation purposes?


Schiss

yeah if you listen to mostly jazz and classical, it'd be pretty silly to go test equipment with rock...duh

if you're in it for the accuracy, you won't get far with rock, the recordign will always be the weakest link.

There is no correct music to test anything with for everyone.

The perfect music to test out your headphones with is whatever music you listen to the most!

That goes for everything.

Quads made just be the best speakers for classical music that music can buy, but no one in their right mind would recommend them for rock.

Many people would kill for Stax earspeakers, but I bet people who listen to badly recorded music like Pop or Rap would hate any Stax system.

The list goes on and on, audio is a very person thing, there is no true right and wrong answer.

I would even say that yes, for many people, Sony Streetstyles really are the best headphones for them.

Deal with it.

In my system rock sounds great, as well as jazz and classical. Ironically, I am discovering how well rock is recorded. E.g., Bjork and Quicksand sound like crap to me on highly analytical SS systems, but fantastic on my headphones.

A test I use is taking Hum or My Bloody Valentine and seeing if the system can make sense of it. If it comes off as harsh and a blur sound melted together then the combo is not for me.... but it is possible to get good detail and sound from these recordings if the system allows it... just takes some patience with system synergy.

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Wow, music can be used as currency?!? You learn something new every day.

As for the auditioning, as others mentioned, what if you don't like classical or jazz? You should audition using w/ your favorite music, whatever that may be.

It's not just accuracy -- it's also transient response, how well the system reproduces "busy" music is very important to me, since I listen to that a lot. So two of my test CD's are Nine Inch Nails, Broken and Stabbing Westward, Darkest Days.

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I've always wondered about this... unless you're listening to an unamped Stratocaster (and what recordings actually use unamp Strats), you're listening to an AMP... not just the Strat. So how can anyone know the "true" sound of a Strat? LOL