Def Leppard, puh-LEEZE. That's a cake track, I have it, and yes, I use it. It's OK. And yes, I can hear all three.
Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat
Liquid recording that'll melt your heart. Jennifer's voice is one of the most demanding I have EVER heard for female vocals.
Peter Gabriel - Secret World Live
Shakin' The Tree, track 5, disc 1. Like no live recording I've EVER IN MY LIFE heard. 22 inch infrabass drums that'll beat ANY vented woofer to the stops!
Erasure - The Innocents
Just damn fun. Good pop recording, clean. REALLY clean highs, subterranean bass. Good vocals overall, too.
Alphaville - Breathtaking Blue
One of my favorite all around groups. You can't get it anymore, it's been out of print for years, but if you see it on eBay, it's worth owning.
10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden
More fantastic female vocals.
Dave Grusin - The Orchestral Album
Minimally processed from one of the very best known names in acoustic music, Dave Gruisin is GRP, and you'll be very hard pressed to find anything wrong with any track on this one.
Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
A rock and roll classic, recorded at over 27 inches per second, this one belongs in every classic rocker's repertoire. Analog at it's finest, no smiley-face EQ, a masterful recording, and I cannot say I have ever heard a cleaner 70's/80's era recording. Ever...
Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
Need it... Get it... PLAY it! Worth whatever you have to pay for it!
Harry Connick, Jr. - She
'Nuff said...
Madonna - The Immaculate Collection
A wonderful recording, good music as well, this was from the days when Madonna still knew how to perform, and most of the music was from the days when she and Michael Jackson wouldn't go on stage to perform until the stage sounded as good as the studio. Too bad those days are long gone, now!
Sade - Love Deluxe
Trust me on this one, too...
Supertramp - Some Things Never Change and/or Crime of the Century
Two completely different selections from (arguably) one of the best rock bands of our time.
Some Things has the benefit of years of technology to make certain the recording is as good as it can be, and it is. When I took the first copy I ever bought of it to the CES, I actually sold it to one of the rooms for THEM to use as a demo CD.
Crime is just fantastic, another high-speed recording, don't bother me when I have it playing. Period.
Disney Soundtrack to "The Little Mermaid"
Don't laugh. It'll test your system all around, I promise.
Kiss the Girl is my favorite track. If you have a good system, you'll love it too. A crap system will sound like CRAP.
The Rocketeer - Soundtrack
Another one that will TRULY show if you have a good system.
Begin the Beguine will sound as if that woman landed in your lap, (and she's hot, too!) and was giving you a free lap-dance on a hi-rez system, and you'll end up with an STD if you are hearing it on a cheezy or poorly designed one. There really is no "half way" on this one. Good, or NOT good.
Steely Dan - Aja
But any album will do, here.
"Wierd Al" Yankovic - Running With Scissors
Another one you might mock, but the recording values on this one are very high, as well.
It's All About The Pentiums is just plain raw, and good clean fun. It happens to be one of my theme songs! LOL
I don't buy music based on it's popularity, as you can tell. Recording values (in many to most cases) to me are FAR more important than the actual music. Some of those listed above are readily available, others... Not so much. But ALL deserve critical listening time on a GOOD system.
It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."