Great choices so far. Here is my list, for what it is worth... 1) Lucinda Williams "Car Wheels On a Gravel Road" - dynamic, voice of coffee mixed with diesel fuel, excellent sense of guitar strings. 2) Dar Williams "Mortal City" - one of the most divine women's voices around, angelic, great acoustic guitar work. 3) The Cure "Mixed Up" - not for the bass shy, an excellent representation of modern music. 4) Steely Dan "Aja" - so much to offer for testing; male voice, instruments, drum kit on Aja, variation in pace, dynamics, etc. 5) John Coltrane "Blue Train" - an essential jazz piece, the required jazz instruments, contains both the smooth and frenetic sides of Coltrane.
Music to test systems
If you were going over to someone’s house to evaluate their system and you only knew it was a high end system, what 5 LPs (if you are into vinyl) and 5 CDs would you take and for what purposes (test bass, imaging, soundstage, etc.). I have thought about this a bit and have not yet narrowed down either to just 5. I will post my answer once this thread gets going.