I always use Casino Royale from a Longines Symphonette collection; the wide range of horns and transients really give me a great indication of when my consoles are to my liking. What test records have all of you used over and over to judge performance of a given unit?

If I want to go real hardcore, I use a Shure ERA lp that I have had forever. The only problem is that it is tedious to go all the way through, and just not fun to listen to.

A lot of the time, I will just dig out a decent clean disc that I know well and like to listen to. If it sounds good, that works. That is based on the idea that I have popped a new needle on a turntable that I am tweeking up. I used a Japanese copy of Ringo Starr's Blast From Your Past lp. Lots of fun, great pressing, and plenty of dyanamics and good stereo. Good for me.

Home At Last from Steely Dan's Aja CD. (Yeah I know, "eww, CDs". I hate them myself.) It's a very uncluttered mix of expertly-recorded percussive instruments (bass, piano, drums). In my experience, if you can reproduce those three things everything else falls into place.

Any of the Winston Link railroad recordings. No better (or even equal) RR sound effects albums exist, and they will drive any bottleneck in your system into the open in a hurry.

Larry

Herb Alpert - Whipped Cream And Other Delights Honestly though, it does sound pretty good and I don't worry about damaging a copy as there are millions of others out there.

"Rhapsody In Blue". Arthur Fiedler's arrangement with Peter Nero at the piano.

For me it has to be Bert Kaempfert, i especially like one track for testing my consoles "Magic Trumpet" It starts off with a doublebass being played, goes down low and is gauranteed to make your cabinet rattle.
Also "Wonderland By Night" is another great Bert Kaempfert track, i just love his arrangements.

Arb,

You hit a home run with this recommendation. Steely Dan, not my favorite band, were absolute studio perfectionists and made some of the best recordings in history. They would not play live for decades because of their desire for acoustic perfection.

Piano, bass and drums - cymbals especially, if you can do those, your system is mint.

The record is not bad either if you want to test your system back to the cartridge.

If you are a guitar lover, then try Dire Straits Sultans of Swing. Pure pure tone. And tubes make this particular song sound better.