I have about 20 or so selections from 10 CD's that I like the sound of that I added to a Sonar project that I call "reference_tracks". The main purpose is too judge the overall volume of the references versus my tracks' volume levels. I'll never get it as loud as the pro tracks (and still sound good), but I continue to look for that master compression buss setting that gets me as loud as I can be -- without going "over". I use wave's SSLCompStereo (mild settings), followed by S1 shuffler (stereo enhancement) followed by the L2 or L3 series limiter. I think using SSL and Limiters at lower settings seems to sound a little better, than just cranking the limiter!

The CD's are Counting Crows, jj cale, jimmy buffet, joni mitchell, natalie merchant, nelly furtado, reba mcentire, ricky skaggs & bruce hornsby, shwan colvin, and tracy chapman. Seems like an varied enough selection to me. The older CD's, like Jimmy and jj, are at much lower volumes than the newer ones. I think the loudest is the ricky skaggs/bruce hornsby CD.

EDIT: I never answered your question! No I don't buy CD's just for the engineers involved -- but that is a pretty good idea.

Now at bandcamp: Crows Say Vee-Eh @ bandcamp or soundcloud: Kevin @ soundcloud