Stone destruction in shock-wave lithotripsy is a very complex procedure which is significantly influenced by the physical concept of shock wave generation as well as by nonlinear wave propagation in water and in biological tissue. Therefore, for realistic experimental in-vitro-investigation of the efficiency of lithotripter systems a couple of requirements have to be fulfilled. The following paper summarizes the physical procedures which are essential for stone destruction and presents conditions for experimental comparison of lithotripter efficiencies. This analysis also shows that some of recently published results regarding this subject have been carried out using non-realistic models.