How many great CDs do you have?

I would guesstimate that I have about 90 wonderful sounding CD's, many of which are SACD. I would say this represents about 10% of my CD collection.

Cheers,
John

My interpertation of the term 'reference CD' would only encompass one that has outstanding sonic attributes AND and an outstanding performance. I would guess that I have a couple hundred at the most out of maybe 5000(+/-?).

Outstanding 'anything' is fairly uncommon I think. The rest, on balance, have more sonic issues than performance issues which doesn't deter me from thoroughly enjoying them.

Well, I have a somewhat different take on this than most people probably do. I am an analog aficionado first and foremost, and so if the CD does not sound at least as good as the LP version, than to me it can not qualify as a reference disk (whereas, the LP might). And since I much prefer the sound of analog versus digital, (even on most digital LP recordings to be honest), there are very few CDs that are duplicates of my LPs that would make this list. (So basically the only CDs that would have a chance to make my list are the ones that don't duplicate my LPs, and since I prefer the sound of analog anyway, those CD recordings are usually not my favorites, as I rarely listen to CDs because of my love of analog sound.) Therefore, out of the 1,000 or so CDs that I own, probably less than 2% would qualify.

So to answer your question .... maybe one or two dozen.

(But on a side note, I do like listening to the other 98% of CDs in the car!) :-)

This is actually a very good question. One of the goals for my system has been to get most CDs to sound good enough that I do not feel like I am missing anything.

After some recent system upgrades (tube pre and DAC), most of the CDs I play (I own a few hundred I suppose) sound at least very good, if not exceptional, in the same league as good vinyl. By this I mean I believe they sound the way that the producers intended them to sound and they play nice and clear and do not produce fatigue during long term listening, which is good, but they are not necessarily absolute top notch in all cases...only a smaller percentage can be that.

This is the case whether I rip them first to the music server and access them over the wireless connection from the Soundbridge or whether played on the Denon player.

Prior to moving to the Audio Research sp-16 tube pre-amp, I did have some reservations with many larger scale orchestral pieces, particularly in regards to the smoothness and unique character of different types of string instruments compared to some of the better systems I had heard. Now, these pass my listening tests with flying colors as well.

I've been a very happy camper in regards to my system of late.....

i suspect that many lps are "poorly" recorded as well. i have heard my fair share. there are some labels whose classical recordings are mediocre, such as many of the columbia "ms" series.

it is not just digital that is characterized by poor recordings, it is all recordings.