great sounding cds to audition new speakers

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

-
I agree with the suggestions above to:
a) bring music you are very familiar with, regardless of your current equipment.

b) bring something that you know is NOT a good recording/mastering.

I use iTunes to burn a CD of songs in WAV/AIFF which I feel have: eitther great dynamic range, crystal clear vocals, strong sibilance (a negative), lots of bass, very good soundstage with real instruments, bad studio recording. All these songs are from my collection. I also use this CD to adjust my own systems or help friends setup/audition gear.

ANOTHER IDEA: If you don't know if your current CDs/SACD/Albums are good recordings maybe in your post you should state something similar to this....

You are seeking great recordings or transfers, etc. of.... identify the genres of music you listen to.

e.g. Traditional chamber music, singer songwriter rock, classsic female jazz vocals, modern rock, bluegrass, etc.

The point being, though there are amazing classical recordings, I have no classical music on my test CD since I never listen to classical.

good luck, ed

Not sure if this adds anything, but some time ago I was waiting to get into a dealer's large room, and listened to some smaller speakers in the line with one of the dealers demo CD's sitting around. it was a pretty good recording, and I thought the speaker was quite good, especially for the money.

It wasn't until I put on one of my reference cuts (Rickie Lee Jones Pop Pop comes to mind) that I could hear how colored the speakers actually were.

Springsteen's Devils and Dust is a decent recording I often use because it uses acoustic instruments and voice, and is an example of the kind of thing I actually listen to often. ALso at least 1 classical cut is mandatory. A speaker should be able to do many types of music reasonably well, and a well recorded orchestra (and string quartet) will tell you much about a speaker, even if you don't play that kind of music. I can't tell you the number of times I have done an upgrade or tweek, that sounded quite nice on a variey of cuts I used. However it was only on a well recorded orchestral track that I could truly tell what was going on due to the upgrade.

A nice piano cut should be included in your audition as well. I find Bill Evans is great for that, without being a true audiophile recording.

I also Like Patricia Barber, Companion. Lot's of nice details,congas, audience claps, drinks getting knocked over, etc that can clue you into a speakers transparency and dynamics.

'A nice piano cut should be included in your audition as well. I find Bill Evans is great for that, without being a true audiophile recording'.

I have Bill Evans at Town Hall, Volume 1 on cd, there is nothing I would say to the effect that this particular Bill Evans cd is a 'non audiophile' cd, especially the drum solo on track #6. Sounds excellent to my ears. Just my 2c.