My headphones and my favorite album for each! I saved my favorite headphones for last.

Focal elegia - Best Buds by Mom Jeans: this is the headphone that prompted me to make this post as without eq, I thought this headphone sounded awful until I listened to the album Best Buds by Mom Jeans. Elegia has a quite wonky tuning: the immediate dip at 3-4k after the ear gain makes the headphone sound extremely muted for instruments like piano, violin, any woodwind as well as female vocals. I believe this album works well because the guitar is already slightly hot in that region, which balances out the dip. However, why I really love this album with elegia is the drums. I think this album, while not the most well mixed, it highlights the punchiness and dynamics that focal is known for. Kick drums and snares sound incredibly lively and energy without being too distracting. Tom drums also sound realistic (especially with its trailing ends of tones).

HD6xx - [Self Titled] by Cigarettes After Sex: I still remember the first time I listened to this album on HD6xx with tube amp. It was genuinely an ineffable experience. The warmth of the HD6XX makes the reverb guitar sound very immersive and full. It's also the type of music where the intimacy of 6xx works so well as it's an album with only few instruments and an atmospheric sound signature so the enclosing "blob" sound of the 6xx only emphasizes the album's ethereal beauty. Vocals (obviously) also sound fantastic due to the headphones midrange emphasis. The vocals really sound like he's whispering to my ears, which is perfectly fitting for this album.

LCD2F (EQ'd) - [Self Titled] by Rage Against the Machine: I had to pick with the lcd2fs EQ'd since that's basically the only way I enjoy listening to it. With EQ, god this album sounds powerful. Even though I'm not a basshead by any means, I do love a massive bass shelf here and feeling the punch of the kickdrum and energy of the bass guitar. LCD2F sounds like there is this incredibly large wall of sound against my ears. I also really feel the "plucking" quality of a planar driver with this album, especially with the screeching sound at the beginning of the "Take the Power Back," which sounds incredibly holographic and realistic. This is one of few albums that makes me forget the annoying LCD weight.

HD560s - Talon of the Hawks by the Front Bottoms: This is possibly the worst mixed album on this list, and that really goes to show how incredible of a headphone the hd560s is. This I believe isn't technically too impressive, but it has one of my favorite frequency responses, which is neutral with slight brightness. This makes the album sound incredibly balanced and natural even though on some headphones, there's a quite distinct busy feeling. I think the 560s turns that into more controlled chaos. I do sometimes feel like it can benefit from a slight boost in the male vocal region just because I'm absolutely in love with the vocalist, but I still believe it's done incredibly tastefully. Again, I could have really chosen any album for this headphone since I don't think anything sounds bad with it, so I just chose one of my personal albums really.

Grado Hemps - 3 by Kirinji: Like the 560s, I believe that the hemps sound "fine" with majority of albums (that's not overly harsh), but unlike the 560s, this headphone really incredibly shines with some tracks and albums more than others. This is because of the hemps combination of incredibly natural timbre with somewhat controversial tonality (treble spikes). But when it works, damn it's fucking great. I would actually describe the hemps as somewhat of a midpoint between 800s and the 6xx because it has the 800s bright (sometimes sibilant) sound signature with 6xx style of lower midrange and midbass focus. This is one of the most well-mixed albums ive ever heard and it really pops with the hemps. It never once reaches sibilant and remains very smooth throughout every single track while providing that airy openness. DMS said that Hemps sometimes have a larger soundstage than the 800s, and this album shows that. I especially really enjoyed the brass section, which actually sounds even more natural than the 800s and has an incredible fullness to it. It's also probably the best acoustic guitar I've heard on a dynamic driver because you can really feel each pluck realistically. And the Hemps also does staging with this album is incredibly present. Vocals are quite intimate, but some instruments genuinely sound so far away that present this real clarity on the vocals. And while instruments do sound far away, they are never thin sounding. It really sounds like I'm shilling over the grados, but the credit is also largely towards the album itself because I do feel like grados are not very technically impressive and very hard to listen to albums that are mixed a bit hot on the treble.

HE560 v4 - Kid A by Radiohead: I kind of hate this headphone for most vocal music. I would describe the tuning of this headphone as a worse tuning of HD800s because it still has the same delayed ear gain region, which peaks around 4-6k region (even though HD800s is still slightly more delayed). But the region after that is quite unbalanced on the HE560 and even midrange seems slightly wonky. So while the general tuning is similar to the 800s, it doesn’t have its soundstage, detail, or the timbre that makes the 800s magical. My biggest problem with this kind of tuning is that it makes vocal sounds kind of hollow or muted. (800s somewhat has this problem too, but the presence region emphasis kind of makes up for it). However, this actually works incredibly well with Yorke’s vocals. It makes his voice blend almost exceptionally well with other instruments in a way that really makes the more experimental parts of the album work (it also certainly works well with the instrumental tracks). It almost makes his voice sounds like an instrument if that makes any sense. I know everyone says this about Radiohead, but listening to “How to Disappear Completely” on this headphone is truly sublime.

Focal Clears - Summer Death (2018 remastered) by Marietta: Wow, this headphone is just really good. It works with basically anything. But my mind was blown away actually by just how much I loved listening to this album with the clears. This is because I don’t enjoy this album a single bit with any of my headphones. It just sounds messy, busy, and undetailed. Even though I think the album is mixed in the ways that the artist want it, it’s not what I want to listen to with my headphones. I almost exclusively listened to this album with speakers or even just on my phone before the clears. But somehow, the clears fixes it all? First of all, clear’s vocal emphasis really helps as I find that vocals are often buried in the album. Second, it makes the guitar sound sparkly without fatigue. This is what I think really saves the headphones. All my headphones are either just dark to the point where the guitar is just straight-up muffled or it makes the guitar way too fatiguing. The clears is the only headphone that actually doesn’t suffer either of the problems. I think 800s does actually kind of make the guitar sound really nice, but that headphone basically has no dynamics, which is another reason why I love the clears with this album. It makes the album sound so energetic with possibly the best drums I’ve ever heard on anything. Let me remind again: clears are good with anything, I promise you, but the fact that it can even make this album sound amazing speaks to its strength. To me, the Focal Clears might be the “reference” headphones.

HD800s - Motion Sickness (Live Recordings) by Bright Eyes: This is my favorite headphone period, so I will be very biased. I thought about putting a classical or jazz album because HD800s truly work best with those types of albums, but this is my list so I’m going to choose my personal favorite, which is the live recording album by Bright Eyes. Truly, all of their better-recorded albums sound amazing on HD800s, but the 800s just has this magic with live recordings for some reason. The soundstage and possibly the most realistic timbre I’ve ever heard just puts you in the same room as the artist. I used to be somewhat picky about being the live recording being mastered well, but I’m at a point where I even enjoy the flaws of the recording because that genuinely makes it feel more realistic. If you own the 800s please go find your favorite band or artist’s live recording and listen to it. It’s just the most beautiful thing ever. Listening to my favorite track “Landlocked Blues” made me almost tear up because the vocals just sounded so incredible. People say 800s is too analytical, and I definitely see that point, but for me, it’s one of my favorite headphones to just relax to because, with this track, it really feels like you are just listening to Conor Oberst (the vocalist) singing in front of you and playing an acoustic guitar. For honorable mention, At the Moonbase by Slaughter Beach, Dog is also amazing with the 800s because it’s such an interesting and unique album, and the 800s allows me to pick up on every single detail that I can find. It really highlights the other best thing about the 800s, which is the sheer clarity that it allows, which I think is notably better than even the clears.