[The-One]

Had someone around my house who remarked on my speakers setup, so I switched it on to show them.

Now my sort of go to tracks for initial demo of speakers / headphones / whatever would be something like from Céline Dion, or Enya. Warm and rich bass that envelopes the listener with either dynamic vocals that pierce through or ethereal voices that hang in the air.

They asked for Freddy Mercury instead. Frankly, I thought it sounded dog , the subwoofer was barely engaged at all and I thought any mediocre speaker could have done that job of portraying lacklustre vocals, like my Amazon Echo Dot.

They seemed to like it. Though I remain unsure what they got out of my setup for it.

 

[msing539]

I pick tracks I know very well and have heard many times and on different setups.

If I pick something more particular like Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, I'm listening for a specific thing.

 

[marone]

I have favorites that reveal qualities I value.
Air, ambience, acoustic and electric guitar attack of transients, no sibilance, soundstage, stereo depth field and separation, mid range, cymbal purity (sounds like metal hissing not rain on a roof) and so on.

Some of mine:
Clash - Revolution Rick
Moby - Ghost Return
Trio - WWW
Eno - Energy Fools the Magician
Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill SHM CD
Collective Soul - December
REM - Chronic Town

For burn in I use Mercury Living Presence CDs, Dorati conducts Respighi, etc.

My HD 6XX responded well to 30 hours burn in. 95% by hour 30. Up to hour 100 has shown to improve sound in my experience with the headphones in my signature.

 

[Spareribs]

A bit of useless trivia: Freddy Mercury is known to use the AKG C414 microphone.