The music I test headphones with

As The Verge’s resident headphones obsessive, I hear a few questions quite often: what are

the best Bluetooth headphones, where can I find those $1,000 cans for less than $100, and what music do you use for testing in your reviews? The first question will be answered in an upcoming This is My Next feature, the second is daft, and the third forms the subject of this article. The obvious thing to say here is that there’s no right or wrong answer, there aren’t distinct categories of “proper” or “good” music, on the one hand, and unworthy junk, on the other. So long as it can still be described as music and not noise, any genre should be able to illustrate the major strengths and weaknesses of a pair of headphones. So the simple advice is to just listen to the music you like: it’s essential that you’re already familiar with how the material should sound (or how you prefer it to sound) in order to fairly assess the effect on it from the new equipment. Headphone testing is often analogized to wine tasting, in that it’s all subjective, but that shouldn’t lead to the specious conclusion that all opinions are equal. There can be subjectively experienced objective truths. My approach to headphone reviews is deliberately lazy. If some terrific, otherworldly pair of headphones requires tons of special equipment, an anechoic room, and perfectly mastered recordings, well, it can just stay in that other world. Readers of The Verge are best served by reviews that treat the gear as they would: which means testing via plebeian sources like Soundcloud and YouTube as well as higher-quality 320kbps MP3s and Tidal’s “Master Quality” setting. The equipment I usually use is a Schiit Jotunheim (a combination amplifier and DAC) when I’m at my desktop and a DragonFly Red or Astell & Kern Kann when I’m on the move. Yes, I’m ready for the era of no headphone jacks on phones. Let’s move on to the music itself: while most genres will do a good job, I do find some styles and particular recordings are better than others. Fortunately, my favored genre of complex electronic music with plenty of bass is popular nowadays and thus provides plenty of variety, experimentation, and diversity. Multilayered productions from the likes of deadmau5 and Squarepusher might not be everyone’s cup of lemongrass tea, but there’s no denying their ability to stretch a pair of headphones.                                                                                                                    https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/12/16463884/vlad-savov-headphone-test-playlist