if i am going to listen to some playback gear today, which cds do you recommend I bring? is there anything you feel is mixed so well that it's the perfect one to test gear out with?
i usually take these cds to a stereo shop:
Alpine Car National test cd (it has about 20 tracks of pure digital mayhem including lots of Jazz, Classical, Vocal and test tone tracks)
Rebecca Pidgeon's The Raven (Chesky records- Hybrid SACD). play "Spanish Harlem" for amazing detailed vocal tracks that will test the mid range performance of many speakers
Steely Dan's Gaucho (Mobile Fidelity's cd or the SACD if you're testing SACD) my fav tracks are "Babylon Sisters" and "Gaucho". lots of warmth & details w/o any harshness
PFloyd's DSotM (SACD) i really like "Time" to listen to ambiance and clarity in the guitars
Steely Dan's "Two Against Nature" DVD-Audio is a damn fine recording.
Diana Krall's "The Look of Love" (now on DVD-Audio) is a great recording. my fav track is "S' Wonderful" with great clarity in the vocals and lots of warmth in the low end.
lastly, few Telarc cds with classical recording will test a system's dynamic range. many lower end amps will fail to reproduce the full range of some of Telarcs's recordings.
i try to stay away from live recordings as test tracks.
marc