great sounding cds to audition new speakers

To enjoy your new speakers buy any or all of these:

Dave Grusin Hommage to Duke
Maceo Parker Roots & Grooves
George Benson Weekend in LA live ("On Broadway")
Tom Petty Wildflowers
Eagles Live Hell Freezs Over
Eva Cassidy Live at Blues Alley
Old School Nation 2 (Hi-Bias Records)
Peter Gabriel Shaking the Tree (Sledgehammer has excellent bass)
Hugh Masekela Hope
Duran Duran Strange Behavior (some of the best extended mixes from the cream of the cream of 80's sound engineers)
Requiem Mozart with Emma Kirby (Chis Hogwood version)
David Gilmour On an Island
Keb 'Mo Slowdown
Bob Dylan Oh Mercy (Man in Long Black Coat is a masterpiece from Daniel Lanois)
Sheffield Labs Drum track XRCD - just to test your speakers at high SPL's and see how they hold together.

Precisely, bring the music you like. When I audition speakers I intentionally bring some CDs that I like that are garbage to see how the speakers handle them.

Definitely useful but I'd be careful selecting speakers that way. If the audio quality really is garbage like Metallica's latest overcompressed POS then you are going to end up with speakers that beat the signal into submission. These same speakers are unlikely to make a quality good recording shine - assuming you listen to other CD's.

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.

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.