Sampler CD's for speaker auditions....

I've never heard anything better than the demo disc Usher Audio gave out at the THE/Stereophile show in NYC last year.
I was told it is a copy of a CD the Taiwan Audio Association puts out each year for their show for members to compare equipment. It's not vinyl, but if CD's sounded this good, it wouldn't matter.

I use few......that I am very familiare with and few of my own that are mixed bag of reference recordings with helpful material for evaluating dynamics, stage, seperation, low level detail, harmony, balance, realism etc.
You can try Usher demo CDs I,II,
Chesky rec. demo.
Stereophile demo discs.
But for the ladies.....I think that number of tracks on both Usher CDs are great weapon. I ask my wife to listen to few tracks from those CDs and she loved it.( through my new CD player which she saw for the first time. When I told her that I was thinking about buying it, she said......YAPPPP
I THINK IT IS WORTH IT, without asking how much was it and after 30min of listening in silence. Well, she did not know that I already bought it,.......shhhhh.)
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I have just noticed that Ncarv beat me to it with Usher demo CDs. In this case I 2nd Ncarv recommendation.

Isn't It a good Idea to bring along lesser/mediocre cd recordings to demo? I mean If the system makes those sort of discs sound good then well recorded discs will obviously sound wonderful. IMO. I always take along discs that i know give speakers a hard time.

Good lord, guys! I was hoping for a CD that can actually be FOUND! Is there any way to actually lay my hands on the Usher CD, or is this yet another horrible case like the Burmester CD?

Robert

Isn't It a good Idea to bring along lesser/mediocre cd recordings to demo?>>>

That all depends on what you listen to. Does your collection have a lot of below average recordings? Of course I have some CD's that sound great, but I'm not usually in search of a forgiving speaker system. I don't feel the Magnepan 1.6/QR's are the least bit forgiving.

Robert

Don't laugh...
In reviewing, and at audio establishments, I often want to hear this disc, among others:

The Best of Bond...James Bond (MGM Music/Capitol Records)
-Over the years there has been quite a diverse collection of songs with a wide range of styles - orchestrated, synthesized, pop, rock, older recordings, newer releases, etc. It's a very diversified disc which covers a lot of ground, and you'll have a great time recalling scenes from Bond movies!

Robbob, shoot me an email, I have two copies.
Will sand you one......no charge.
I picked one up few years back in N.Y and this year at the CES (by accident. Thought it was a new version).

Cheers

Mariusz Stark