What is the One Test Track That Tells You Almost Everything About A System?

+1 for "Limehouse Blues" (or just about anything else from Jazz at the Pawnshop).

My 3-SACD 30th Anniversary set on the Proprius label includes the liner notes from the 2005 SACD release, written by Stefan Navermyr and detailing the recording process that engineer Gert Palmcrantz followed.  They include descriptions of the  make/model/directionality of the microphones used, distances from each other, angles of incline, distances above the floor, etc.  Incredibly fascinating to read. 

After JATP, I typically go to either a tried and true standby, a SACD of "Kind of Blue", or Donald Fagen’s solo Kamakiriad release and listen to "Snowbound" (a track, by the way, that was written by Fagen/Becker back in 1985), "Tomorrow’s Girls" and "Springtime".  Typical Steely Dan production values (and sardonic, literary lyrics).  Happily, as it were, the year Kamakiriad was released (1993) the two set out on Steely Dan’s first tour since 1974 . 

But I digress.

@ted_b     Great call on Enamoured. I thought I was the only one. The whole album is uniformly well recorded and audiophile quality. I even called up the head man at Neurodisc to compliment him on the recording quality of the disc.

@ulcerdoc 

It has been a while since I played my 2011 Premonition pressing of Cafe Blue....thanks for the bump, I forgot what a wild 9 min ride Nardis is.  

greetings & kind regards

if Stravinsky "Petrushka" and "The Firebird" do not sound good on my system i am not happy . unfortunately they do not contain vocals , there is always Luciano Pavarotti and Maria Callas to name but a few . 

cheers

When i first got the hifi bug aged 16, and for the first decade or so, including when i was in the trade i had specialist ’find out’ tracks, foremost was Another Brick in the Wall pt1, that moody sound followed by the helicopter, if it landed on the roof of the listening space then all was good. These days however I’ll play whatever i am listening to most at the time, because that’s what matters to me, not some ancient yardstick.

That being said, when I’m deep in the zone my ultimate album is Oto by Fluke. For sound quality nothing comes close to the subterranean bass, the stupendous soundstage and irresistible flow contained in this album. The only other record i could mention in the same breath is the William Orbit masterpiece Ray of Light by Madonna.  Seriously i kid  you not the production on that album is superlative.