The Sheffield Labs My Disc Compact Disc is arguably one of the most popular reference discs available.

Sheffield Labs CD103 - "My Disc"

If you had to buy just one CD as an all rounder Reference Disc then this is the CD for you. The assortment of Jazz and Classical music, combined with its exceptional high quality recording, and many reference and technical tracks will help you tune even the worst of audio systems (both car and home). The CD comes with a comprehensive liner detailing each track, its characteristics and some technical information. It also explains how to use each track.

The disc begins with six carefully chosen music selections including: "Stranger In My Bed" UP FRONT and THE POWER OF SEVEN, "Dish Rag" from I've Got The Music In Me THELMA HOUSTON & PRESSURE COOKER, "Dance of the Knights" from Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet THE LEINSDORM SESSIONS, VOL 1, "Dirty Blue" from The Name Is Makowicz, ADAM MAKOWICZ, with PHIL WOODS, "Wishing Well" from Speaking In Melodies, MICHAEL RUFF, "Dock of the Bay" from LINCOLN MAYORGA & DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUES, VOL. III.

The technical tracks begin with Track 7, a 1 kHz sine wave at -20 dBFS, and continue to track 8 the same sine wave recorded at 0 dBFS. Tracks 9 to 18 are bandwidth limited warble tracks centered at 20 Hz, 62 Hz, 250 Hz, 500 Hz, 2.5 kHz, 5 kHz, 10 kHz, 15 kHz, and 19 kHz. Track 19 is a person counting. Tracks 20 and 21 are channel identifications. Track 22 is a quick polarity check. Track 23 provides three positive polarity pulses followed by one negative polarity pulse for checking absolute polarity. Track 24 is a clipped sine wave for bench checks. Track 25 begins the acoustic section with three people talking about their location in the sound stage. Track 26 is all three people talking at once. Tracks 27 to 32 are specially processed stereo-mono fed into various channels for the purpose of shifting images across the stage. Track 30 is a center image. Track 31 mono shifted to the right channel. Track 32 back to stereo. Track 33 contains a 45-second sample of music recorded at a normal transfer level. Track 34 is the same sample but down 10 dB. Track 35 is down 20 dB. Track 36 is down 30 dB. Track 37 is down 40 dB. Track 38 is down 50 dB. Track 39 is down 60 dB. Track 40 is down 70 dB. Track 41 is digital black or all low bits or 0 bits. Track 42 is a high frequency at 0000 then FFFF and is used for bench tests. Track 43 is correlated pink noise. Track 44 is un-correlated pink noise. Track 45 is for demonstrating the concept of dB (decibels). Track 46 uses 3 dB increments to demonstrate dBs. Tracks 47 to 56 contain bandwidth limited pink noise that has been filtered into successive 1/3rd-octave bands. Track 57 contains a warble sound from 20 Hz to 20 kHz for subjectively evaluating relative smoothness. Track 58 is a warble from 100 Hz to 20 Hz. Track 59 contains individual frequencies from 10 Hz to 99 Hz with each frequency for exactly 5 seconds. Tracks 60 to 62 contain very flat, low distortion 20 to 20 kHz sweeps. Track 63 is 440 Hz note "A" and Track 64 is a 100 Hz tone burst. Track 65 is a burst set at 1 kHz and Track 66 is centered at 10 kHz. Track 67 is 100 Hz square waves. Track 68 is square waves at 1 kHz. Tracks 69 through 82 are very detailed and revealing distortion tracks so that the user can evaluate how much distortion is present. Track 84 is a demonstration of group delay and tracks 85 and 86 were recorded at the Indy 500 with special ITE (In the Ear) microphones for demonstrating the auditory phenomena known as externationalization. If you've never experienced sound from headphones appearing to originate from points behind, on top, and to the side of you, check out these two tracks.