CD's for auditioning

The Shadows - moonlight shadows , a great mix of classic and contemporery tracks , give it a listen its budget priced but as anyone would know theres nothing cheap about
hank marvin and the shadows music.

The most difficult to reproduce correctly are female vocals and acoustic piano. Take good recordings of these along and find out how many pieces of equipment are embarrassed. Diana Krall recordings cover both of these aspects.

I second the Dire Straits, Diana Krall stuff for critical evaluations. Probably just because I like that stuff and know the songs so well but also since piano and vocals are harder to get right. Other than that any unamplified performances you know really well. I always take along a few songs I know well but are not that well recorded too.

Dire Straits- Best of
Eagles- Desparado- First cut is Doolin" Daltons.
Steely Dan AJA- Listen to "Peg".
Fleetwood Mac- Best Of.

I do this for a business, so I need the best. I like to use the following jazz track because of the intense piano passages. If your system does these well, without halos, echoes, reverberation or sibilance, then you have arrived:

Gene Harris - the Concord Years, disk 1 - track 2, 4 and 6

Great piano and string bass - very dynamic.