Auditioning tunes

It really makes no difference what you use, as long as you're very familiar with it on your current system. Pick CD's (unless, of course, you use LP's as your primary software) that test all frequencies and those whose transient "speed" and decay are likely to be apparent. My own test discs include: Burmester "samplers" (Vorfurings) 2&3; Jennifer Warnes, Famous Blue Raincoat (Canadian pressing); Copland on Telarc (CD-80078); Stravinsky, Histoire du soldat (Chesky CD122); The Fi/Analouge Productions Sampler; Cowboy Junkies, Trinity Sessions (Classics reissue Gold-RTHCD8568); Eric Clapton, Unplugged; and, Garcia/Grisman, Not for Kids Only. All of these Cd's are very well recorded, though some are a bit difficult to find. The 3 samplers have a wide array of music and are the best portable library I've found to test every link in a sysytem.

Listen to some well recorded female vocals. You can hear if the speakers make her sound sibilant (where "s" sounds like "sh" as in "sash." Sarah McLachlan, kd lang, Tori Amos are just a few. I also like to listen to tracks that have good soundstage to see how the speaks reproduce that (highly influenced by the source too). Radiohead's "OK Computer" is wonderfully mixed and Thom York's vocals really soar. Some very good bass on the track "Lucky." I also like hearing how male harmony sounds, so any band that features good two- or three-part harmony is great. Huge number of choices from CSN&Y to King's X, dada, Posies, and the list goes on and on. With classical, listen to strings and woodwind instruments. A good recording of Peter and the Wolf does an admirable job for me. Best of luck!