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Sampler CD's for speaker auditions....

...and showing off!

Now please don't dull my senses with that pat answer about music I like and so on. When I went out to audition over 40 pairs of speakers, obviously I brought along music I loved and knew at it's sonic heights.
As usual I walked into a shop to listen to the Maggie 1.6/QR's I eventually ordered and someone flipped on the Burmester II CD for me.
Now that CD has some fun music on it and it's recording/remastering is very very good. Of course I can't find the Burmester II cd anywhere (!!!!) and only the III is available. But I was wondering what other discs, for the sheer sake of WOWING the ladies (and my wife!), match up to the Burmester CD, which is a lot of fun because it's a superb sampler.
Well? Spare me the mature answers!

Cheers,

Robert
robbob
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ncarv
983 posts
 
I've never heard anything better than the demo disc Usher Audio gave out at the THE/Stereophile show in NYC last year.
I was told it is a copy of a CD the Taiwan Audio Association puts out each year for their show for members to compare equipment. It's not vinyl, but if CD's sounded this good, it wouldn't matter.
mrjstark
1,112 posts
 
I use few......that I am very familiare with and few of my own that are mixed bag of reference recordings with helpful material for evaluating dynamics, stage, seperation, low level detail, harmony, balance, realism etc.
You can try Usher demo CDs I,II,
Chesky rec. demo.
Stereophile demo discs.
But for the ladies.....I think that number of tracks on both Usher CDs are great weapon. I ask my wife to listen to few tracks from those CDs and she loved it.( through my new CD player which she saw for the first time. When I told her that I was thinking about buying it, she said......YAPPPP
I THINK IT IS WORTH IT, without asking how much was it and after 30min of listening in silence. Well, she did not know that I already bought it,.......shhhhh.)
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I have just noticed that Ncarv beat me to it with Usher demo CDs. In this case I 2nd Ncarv recommendation.
gawdbless's avatar
gawdbless
1,235 posts
 
Isn't It a good Idea to bring along lesser/mediocre cd recordings to demo? I mean If the system makes those sort of discs sound good then well recorded discs will obviously sound wonderful. IMO. I always take along discs that i know give speakers a hard time.
robbob OP
273 posts
 
Good lord, guys! I was hoping for a CD that can actually be FOUND! Is there any way to actually lay my hands on the Usher CD, or is this yet another horrible case like the Burmester CD?

Robert
robbob OP
273 posts
 
Isn't It a good Idea to bring along lesser/mediocre cd recordings to demo?>>>

That all depends on what you listen to. Does your collection have a lot of below average recordings? Of course I have some CD's that sound great, but I'm not usually in search of a forgiving speaker system. I don't feel the Magnepan 1.6/QR's are the least bit forgiving.

Robert
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