Road trip to demo $10,000 speakers

Here are a some CDs I’ve found to be good for demos. Maybe you already have a couple, but they’re all good music (at least IMHO) in addition to being very well recorded. Of course they’re only good for demo purposes if you’re already pretty familiar with them before going to audition.

Keb Mo - Slow Down. Good for dynamics, bass, guitar, and male vocals

Patricia Barber - Companion. Live recording, soundstage/imaging, and female vocals

Sera Una Noche (from MA Recordings). incredible soundstaging, percussion, woodwinds

Tony Falanga- Soul of the Bass. Acoustic bass, strings, tone, incredible imaging and soundstage

Joe Sample - Old Places, Old Faces. Piano, sax, imaging

Oscar Peterson meets Roy Hargrove and Ralph Moore. Intimate jazz, piano, trumpet

Tons of others, but hope this gives you some additional fun and useful stuff.

It may seem like a simple, obvious suggestion but: don’t forget to bring a lot of music that you actually listen to. I think it’s tempting for us audiophiles when grabbing music to audition a system to gravitate to the really good recordings/audiophile stuff because we want to see just how good/realistic the system can sound. But are those discs really making up the bulk of your listening?

I learned long ago to bring everything I listen to, from crap to great, to see how the speaker works with the music that I truly love and want to play. The sort of "would I play this in the car" is a sort of marker for the music I want to play just because it’s the music I like, vs sheer sound quality.

if this truly a 'once in a lifetime' purchase....can you squeeze a few more thousand?
i truly  l o v e  the B&W 803
additionally....the Focal Sopra 2 is tuffff to beat.

as mentioned above,  Soundscape in Bmore.
see Ed or his son Justin....

@Skyscraper Please give your impressions after you hear the speakers...I would love to hear your impressions of Aerial 7ts.

I can confirm that Command Performance AV just got the Magico A3 and you can demo it there in their showroom. At Command you can also demo Focal Kanta and Devore (among others)

Visit Evolution AV or IQ to demo the Revel F228Be. Both shops have it available for demo in their showrooms