great sounding cds to audition new speakers

I don't have a clue what type of music you listen to most so I'll spare you another arbitrary recommendation. But some of the comments above are excellent and I will try to add to them.

What I used to test speakers (in my home) are chosen from the music I listen to all the time, enjoy the most, and are recordings with which I am intimately familar. Some will be SOTA recordings (not many), some not (mostly), some recordings that are borderline in some respects but otherwise very enjoyable.

Jax 2 is right on regarding the using of a drecky recording but I do find it useful have recordings which I find very enjoyable but have recording issues that become too prominent on some components/speakers, often found in the reproduction of the upper mid range/highs common to some brass, pianos, and cymbals in a drum kit for example.

I don't usually use SOTA audiophile recordings (although I have a couple which will really test a system which) because unless you are very familar with the contents they tend to make even ordinary stuff sound better than it is when you play normal stuff. And I do, usually select recordings of solo instruments, vocal, and/or small groups, as there is nothing much to hide faults, whereas orchestral recordings or recordings with amplified instruments can cover a lot of sin.

Hope that helps a bit......

No worries - I did read your post - I was just trying to clarify that some awful
CD's do sound better on some systems in a sense that multiplying two
minuses can make a positive. This means that a few bad recordings have the
potential to be quite misleading when judging a system.

For example, compressed recordings nearly always sound better on a speaker
with a midrange scoop and "harsher" on a speaker without the
same scoop - that is simply because distortion sounds harsh (less harsh if it
is eq'd down across your sensitive midrange hearing). So the prototypical
boom boom tizz type speaker with a hole in the midrange will make it sound
better, as well as oh-ah impressive.

The midrange scoop is the great legacy of the all too popular two way
speakers with mid/bass woofers that start beaming at 1 KHz but do not
crossover to the tweeter until 3 or 4 Khz. At a nearfield distance of three feet
these will sound ok. However, in any room where what you hear is 50%
reflected off axis energy - then these speakers have a hole in the midrange.

Shadrone - Sorry about the moniker confusion. :-) FWIW, I think we were on different wave lengths so I might well have been talking about a non-existent poster in the thread.

whereas orchestral recordings or recordings with
amplified instruments can cover a lot of sin.

Exactly. If you can't follow any instrument of your choosing on large orchestral
or big band (due to their being too much going on) then that indicates a poor
quality system. A good system should uncover every sin on even the busiest
recording. It is an awful lot easier for a system to play one small instrument well
than to play a big band that fills the entire audio spectrum at high SPL and still
sound as if each instrument is being played individually and effortlessly.

So beware the salesman who sells you a speaker based on *only* listening to
Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez - you should check to see how the speaker
handles a busier recording first.

I like many of the records mentioned here for auditioning, particularly:

Shelby Lynne
Roots & Grooves
Cooder/Bhatt
Tracy Chapman
Trinity Sessions

I'd add 5 more to consider:

Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderly (vocals/sax)
Duke Ellington's Far East Suite (big band/piano)
Jennifer Warnes "The Hunter" (vocals/bass)
Peter Gabriel's "Last Temptation" soundtrack (tuned drums)
Eels or E almost anything, but maybe "Beautiful Freak" to start. (deep bass + music vs taped effects contrast)

All are good tools for evaluation.

Good Luck

Marty