Test CD

Would it make sense to buy more than one of these CD's to burn in a new pair of speakers? Will one Test CD offer some advantages over the other with the kind of noise or music it contains?

I'm going to spend less than $500 for a pair of bookshelf speakers. I know the kind of sound that I desire in a speaker and have narrowed my choices down to around 5 models that possess these traits based upon both professional reviews and user reviews. With that in mind I am wondering if certain CD's will offer advantages for a speaker with a particular sound?

"12-14-14: Will62
Would it make sense to buy more than one of these CD's to burn in a new pair of speakers? Will one Test CD offer some advantages over the other with the kind of noise or music it contains?"

No. Break in is break in. It doesn't matter how you do the break in, the end result is the same. The sound of your speakers won't change if you use different CD's.

"I know the kind of sound that I desire in a speaker and have narrowed my choices down to around 5 models that possess these traits based upon both professional reviews and user reviews."

I would do it that way only as a last resort. There's no substitute for demoing the speakers yourself. When you go by reviews and opinions, there's just too many variables at play to make it a reliable method of selecting the right speaker. So, even if the reviews say that the speaker has certain qualities that you want, you may not get the same results. That's one of the main reasons why some people have such a hard time putting together a good sounding system that they can live with.

Will62-

I concur, the Stereophile test CDs are more than sufficient.
I still use these discs to "touch up" my system.

Any of you guys use the DALI test cds? If so, please post your impressions!
Keep me posted & Happy Listening!

I got an Isotek CD free with some hifi mag...it's great (the "sound going
around your head" feature is cool), but I never use the "burn in"
feature because I think it's silly (maybe if I was a speaker reviewer or something
I'd use it). I also have the Stereophile test CDs and they're cool...I have a meter
thing in an iPhone to get db levels when I need to so it's nice to have a tone
generator around...like recently when a channel was losing level...bad tube...also,
why use a "burn in " CD when you can listen to a component burn in? Otherwise
you don't know from whence it burns...what the unburned sound is...when it
ripens...you know?...or you don't.