Best CD or DVD to show off my new home theatre system?

For Audio There are no suurround CD recordings. If you system can play multichannel SACD or DVD-Audio - get Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, REM, Dire Straights. DVD - Eagles "when hell freezes over" - Hotel California track - is one of the best sounding recordings. For Video: Fifth Element, Jurassik Park, anything on DIscovery HD, Gladiator, Pirates of the Carribean, any Pixar or Dreamwork animation.

For video - Pixar animation is alway good, and jeracstic parks t-rex scene is mind blowing. OH .. yeah snowwrider is right top gun is a excellent choice. it has alot of channel switching.. left to right , front to back ect... for audio, i'd try and find a remastered version of "max vs roach" it is a "drumoff" between clasical drumming legions buddy rich and max roach.

Pearl Harbor!

I hate to say this, but one of the Star Trek movies, I forget which one but when I heard it at my friends house, I was blown away! Picture this, from the rear right, to the mid, then front right...while that stoopid ship is coming from the right side of the screen. You literally hear the movement shift from the front right speaker to the front left, to the mid, then rear left as the stoopid starship finishes crossing from right to left on the screen. Then there's always Top Gun. A true pioneer in Surround Sound to this day!

Here's a quick list of movies that aren't quite "Oscar worthy", but will surely impress your friends...This link also includes which version of the DVD to purchase, which audio tracks to select, how many speakers to play (5 or 7) and which chapters to skip to as well...Enjoy...Click right here: http://www.avtruths.com/testdiscs.html

If you have tower speakers use a DTS enable disk if you have DTS on your machine. I recommend Dances with wolves the audio is superb. For Video anything pixar or Fifth Element are great choices for regular DVD. Blue ray or HD DVD you are on your own. Audio: depending on you set up I would try of all things a good classical album, not a compilation. These are recorded well since the listeners are music savvy and to reproduce a sound stage accurately with classical music is a challenge. Bach or Mozart for tower or book shelf speakers. If you satellite speakers stick with DD for everything.

For audio 'show-offs' there is none better than Emerson, Lake and Palmer's 'Jerusalem'. It has been the 'torture' test song for as long as I can remember (being in audiophile for over 20 years). For video...Jurassic Park has always been a fairly impressive disc to use.

The Lord of The Rings/The Two Towers DVD Movie. Artifical Intelligence Audio DVD. Both I am selling on http://www.half.com My seller name ybetnow.