how to evalulateand compare negatives

I have just started processing my own 35mm film (delta 100 in stock D-76 w/Illfords reccomended times) and so far so good, but I am having trouble critically evaluating the final results. I've read a few books on this (mainly the AA one) but they are long on talk and short on pictures of examples. Aside from reading newsprint through the darkest sections, how can I critically evaluate my negs (aside from obvious defects & severe over/under- exp/dev)so I can learn to see if they are poor, ok ,just good or great? I tried comparing them to what my local pro lab did to my other rolls of Delta 100 (they seem pretty close but mine are just a "bit" more contrasty) but is this a fair comparison? I've tried showing other people my negs but got opinions all over the map. Do I now have to buy a densiometer? Should I just try printing what I have so far? Thanks for any help.

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