For soprano and tenor sax, you may want to check out the Jan Garbarek Group's "Twelve Moons" (ECM 1500). The second track ("Psalm") also contains beautifully moving female vocals by Agnes Buen Garnas interlaced with Garbarek's flowing soprano sax lines. About 2 minutes into this piece there are three subtle bell strikes which I use for evaluating imaging and soundstage height (the 1st should be low and right of center, the second also low but near or just outside the left speaker, and the third should be high and above the left speaker). Other tracks on this recording contain some nice percussion that can be used for evaluating imaging and soundstage width, depth, and layering. For chorus-type vocals, Garbarek's "Officium" is very good (great ambience content as well). For alto sax, any of Sanborn's stuff will work; I've recently been using "Hearsay" since it contains a couple of rather dynamic pieces with some bottom-feeder bass. For testing reproduction of acoustic guitar and female vocals, I sometimes use Jewel's "Pieces of You" (it's quite pure and minimal -- pretty much just vocals and guitar -- which allows me to focus on the reproduction of voice quality and string overtones without distraction). For male vocals and guitar, I usually use Chris Isaak's "San Francisco Days" or "Baja Sessions." For contralto female vocals, I use Abbey Lincoln's "A Turtle's Dream", which also contains some good instrument work (including sax, bass, drum, piano, and guitar), and a nice vocal duet between Abbey and Lucky Peterson (on "Hey, Lordy Mama"). For a mix of male and female vocals, instruments, etc., I use Dead Can Dance's "Into the Labyrinth" (which you are apparently already familiar with). For solo piano, I usually use George Winston's "Autumn." Before deciding to buy any piece of gear, I also play it through with a few tracks from Hugh Masekela's "Hope" which contain a wonderfully alive mix of horn, sax, vocals, and percussion (great for checking rhythm and pace too). Finally, when auditioning gear, I now always bring along a few "poor" recordings to see how these will be reproduced (I used to only test with stellar recordings and as a result ended up buying gear that sounded exceptional on my reference disks but virtually unlistenable with half of my collection). Hope this helps. Don
Reference Vocal/Piano/Sax/Guitar CD s
I am looking for a few reference CD's to demo or to use as references when I try out new system, speaker, or cable. I need good recording with clean sound, wide and deep soundstage and full range (bass, mid, high) if possible. Please provide CD's recommendation for each type: Vocal, Piano, Sax, and Guitar. So far, I only know and like Diana Krall, Patrica Barber, Sarah Brighman, Dead can Dance, Three Blind Mise, Lorena McKenitt. I don't really have any great piano or sax cd's to provide as examples. For guitar, I have Sarah & Strunt (America) (not sure on spelling???) and Gavi. Any new recommendation are greatly appreciated. Thanks.