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Do you need high end speakers for rock and heavy metal?

Everest is the epitome of the hi end speaker.
Right price to be in the middle price tier,luxury finish,well made to the last detail,etc.

Let me rephrase: Not the typical audiophile speaker. :)
 
Let me rephrase: Not the typical audiophile speaker. :)
Well,there's two sides of it as I wrote above.
The big nice ones,JBL,Wilson,Rockport,etc and the small "esoteric" ones like Zu audio and stuff.

I would say that the typical ones for most people are the former (as far as I have seen amongst friends) .

Edit:and of course,there's the big horns,out of competition I believe for stuff like that)
 
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Many times productions of rock music are wrongfully accused of being badly recorded and mixed, but as @Sacha pointed out, rock and metal music is often much more challenging to mix as there is usually much more going on and at the same time, as there are usually intensively played instruments that compete for the same frequency range which will unavoidable cause more frequency masking.

The big challenge to avoid some of the frequency masking is to get all the pannings right, sometimes carving out and dedicating certain frequency ranges for different instruments, and get the compression level right for certain sound objects which are usually the kick drum, the bass guitar, and the vocals, as those sound elements often have way too much dynamics to work with everything else in the mix without either getting buried or overwhelm the rest in a crowded mix.

A thing I think most listeners have noticed is that when it comes to a less dense part in an otherwise crowded and dense rock mix, a segment where just one or two of the instruments are played, the individual instruments are often pretty well recorded when heard on their own but right at the moment when all the other instruments come in, it can yet again sound way worse in a way that may make people think it’s badly recorded.



But if we go back to the topic of this thread.
Some loudspeakers just seem to be way better than others at keeping things separated when a music mix gets dense with a lot of frequency overlapping of competing sound elements, that without making a total mess out of everything keeping good separation and layering, and a sense of “calmness” of how everything sounds is somehow kept in check even when the music itself is highly dense and intense. :)
That is a great discription of what I look for in a speaker, I would discard all 2 way speakers except for some exceptional coaxials. Could you make a short list of the speakers that have this most important quality of separation and layering.
 
That is a great discription of what I look for in a speaker, I would discard all 2 way speakers except for some exceptional coaxials. Could you make a short list of the speakers that have this most important quality of separation and layering.

Sigberg Audio SBS.1
Sigberg Audio Manta
Sigberg Audio Saranna (2025)

:D
 
how does this manifest?

I see no reason for these genres to be difficult. any speaker can do midrange

I feel like I already described that, but I will try again, and no, these genres do not contain midrange exclusively.

On many speakers, a lot of rock and metal sound busy or messy, too thin (lacking punch) and harsh / sharp / grating. The soundstage and instruments are a big mush as opposed to being spread out and individually identifiable. Instead of tapping your feet and turning up the volume, you cringe and feel like turning it down.
 
That is a great discription of what I look for in a speaker, I would discard all 2 way speakers except for some exceptional coaxials. Could you make a short list of the speakers that have this most important quality of separation and layering.

ATC speakers definitely have that quality, that’s one of the reasons why I like them so much as they keep things in check, the separation and layering of different sound objects are outstanding. I often hear this being mentioned and probably one of the main reasons why they are so popular in music studios, it’s great to hear what’s actually there when it comes to all the layerings in a music mix.

That's my short list. :)
 
I feel like I already described that, but I will try again, and no, these genres do not contain midrange exclusively.

On many speakers, a lot of rock and metal sound busy or messy, too thin (lacking punch) and harsh / sharp / grating. The soundstage and instruments are a big mush as opposed to being spread out and individually identifiable. Instead of tapping your feet and turning up the volume, you cringe and feel like turning it down.

what are examples of speakers making them sound good?
 
On many speakers, a lot of rock and metal sound busy or messy, too thin (lacking punch) and harsh / sharp / grating. The soundstage and instruments are a big mush as opposed to being spread out and individually identifiable. Instead of tapping your feet and turning up the volume, you cringe and feel like turning it down.
One thing that we often see with speakers is that the in-room response rises up at or above the presence region. This is a really bad one, but there are many others that show similar traits:

Estimated%20In-Room%20Response.jpg


Here is another example from a recent review in this forum:

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I think with metal music in general, it is hard on the speakers because there is stuff going on everywhere. There is not a frequency range where nothing happens. The guitars generate a lot of overtones, again especially around the 4khz region where our ears are most sensitive.

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If you combine this with speakers like shown above, you will get a poor result.

On the low end then, you might have a double bass that constantly kicks. Lesser 2-ways with a woofer that has to try and play bass+midrange at the same time then suffer from IMD distortion.

With regards to the speaker market, I want to say that around the 1000-4000€ range, there are a lot of well engineered speakers. If you go above that, I think that very often brands to like distinguish themselves by doing things differently. This might work for some genres. Especially the classic audio show jazz song with some nice bass and a good female voice might even benefit from strange frequency response and people will gush about all the details that they can hear with the speaker. We've all seen the insane measurements of really expensive speakers at Stereophile.
1221BW804fig4.jpg

This is 12000$/pair https://www.stereophile.com/content/bowers-wilkins-diamond-series-804-d4-loudspeaker-specifications


For me then, a good speaker for metal has to have no rising high frequency response in-room and has to be able to dish out the bass without sacrificing the mid-range. Volume is honestly not that important to me, just because it's metal does not mean I need or want concert levels at home. I mostly listen at 78-86dBC, peaks maybe at 105dB and that is more than enough.

I like your designs, but maybe you could build something smaller and more affordable, if it doesn't go loud as hell what would be fine with me.
 
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ATC speakers definitely have that quality, that’s one of the reasons why I like them so much as they keep things in check, the separation and layering of different sound objects are outstanding. I often hear this being mentioned and probably one of the main reasons why they are so popular in music studios, it’s great to hear what’s actually there when it comes to all the layerings in a music mix.

That's my short list. :)
That is my short list as well.
 
I like your designs, but maybe you could build something smaller and more affordable, if it doesn't go loud as hell what would be fine with me.

Thank you. Yeees, loud as hell is sort of our thing. But we'll see! :D
 
ATC speakers definitely have that quality, that’s one of the reasons why I like them so much as they keep things in check, the separation and layering of different sound objects are outstanding. I often hear this being mentioned and probably one of the main reasons why they are so popular in music studios, it’s great to hear what’s actually there when it comes to all the layerings in a music mix.

That's my short list. :)
The thing is, I heard ATC 100A's of different samples and rooms over the years and to me, they NEVER sounded overly obvious and explicit as one would expect a 'monitor' of old to do. They just seemed to say 'Here it is' with 'arms spread wide' and they, as much as any decent speaker can, let the listener decide (back in the day, B'Boom sounded amazing with wick right up in my smallish living room with a little eq low down, having been blown away by a live version at the RAH not long before - shows how long ago that was :eek:). The one thing they didn't like was overly compressed recordings, but they did a fine job overall and latest versions also 'do' low volumes too better than mine ever managed. They're so bloody expensive now, which is why the Neumann 420s look so interesting, painted finish aside...

My genteel 2007 era ('Warm, natural sound of') Harbeth SHL5's can do heavier rock too, but they're not 'explicit enough' for me and the restrained presence balance doesn't allow 'soaring guitars' and so on (they're far too 'nice' for that really). I do long for the days gone by when I could almost be blown out of my chair, but hopefully when stuff is sorted here, I can settle on a clear and explicit sound at lower levels (what much rock of all types also requires if one has neighbours) without losing too much (if any) of the natural voice and acoustic instrument reproduction I've become used to. Got to say JBL keeps an insistent presence in my head, but what I really want is too expensive now and I'm terrified the cheaper ones available here might sound too scratchy and/or raucous. Apologies for rambling and possible thread drift here.
 
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I honestly don't think there's such a thing as high end speakers, but I see you already got burned for that so I'm not going to drag it any further.

I think that everything sounds better on a well performing speaker. I don't believe in this "messy, distorted, lo-fi, crunchy" so use Cerwin Vega. I was very pleasantly surprised how early Panthera, Slayer, Megadeath and Metallica albums sounded on LS50 Meta. It's really good sounding.
 
I wrote an article with this title, obviously to promote our active speaker systems, so I am putting this in the Desperate dealers forum. :)

The article can be found here:

But is there perhaps a wider discussion to be found here?

  • Why are so many (even expensive) speakers struggling with this genre?
  • Do great speakers really "reveal bad recordings", or is it the other way around? Do the recordings reveal bad speakers?
  • What makes a speaker work well with rock and metal?
I read your short article and I think this might be an interesting question if I could get a better definitions. First, we need a short playlist. Next, what does "high end loudspeakers" refer to? Examples might help. Are your loudspeakers high end? What about mine: Genelec 1029A on the desk and Ascend Sierra Tower in the living room? And finally, what can I do to get a baseline? e.g. do my HD58X suffice as a reference compare with high end loudspeakers?
 
I think that everything sounds better on a well performing speaker. I don't believe in this "messy, distorted, lo-fi, crunchy" so use Cerwin Vega. I was very pleasantly surprised how early Panthera, Slayer, Megadeath and Metallica albums sounded on LS50 Meta. It's really good sounding.
I was thinking the same thing. A couple of albums that I love High Rise II and Deerhoof Reveille have very messy sound that I adore and is deeply satisfying but they sound great on good loud loudspeakers. I've never noticed rock sounding noticeably worse on better speakers, which is so obviously a problem of definitions that I should shut up.
 
I read your short article and I think this might be an interesting question if I could get a better definitions. First, we need a short playlist. Next, what does "high end loudspeakers" refer to? Examples might help. Are your loudspeakers high end? What about mine: Genelec 1029A on the desk and Ascend Sierra Tower in the living room? And finally, what can I do to get a baseline? e.g. do my HD58X suffice as a reference compare with high end loudspeakers?

I have to sit down with my system to give you a playlist, won't have time for that today, perhaps tomorrow.

With "typical high end loudspeakers" I'm thinking loudspeakers that cost north of say 20,000USD, where the focus is perhaps on aesthetics and exotic materials rather than science - so not necessarily high end in the true meaning of the word, but rather expensive speakers that audiophiles hold dearly, where "these speakers reveal poor recordings" are used as an excuse for ..not great sound.

I would say neither 1029A (way too small and cheap, and engineering based) nor the Ascend Sierra Tower (too cheap and too good) qualifies. :)

Not sure exactly what you mean by baseline.
 
I was just listening to War Pigs and it sounds great but I also find that Dylan album sounds fine and can't fault the mix in particular, tonallity-wise it sounds fairly well-balanced with good separation between instruments and everything in the mix is clearly heard. There are just some elements that's on the brink of sounding a little on the harsh side sometimes, but not really over the top in a way that I feel the need of turning it down.
What is it that make you think it's badly mixed?

There is no dynamic range even though many of the tracks could feature a silent noise floor and the treble is shelved quite high. Compared to his other albums from the same time frame it is incredibly thin sounding and plenty of other music from the mid 70's doesn't suffer from such a bad mix. I don't turn it down much but I certainly never turn it up!
 
Not sure exactly what you mean by baseline.
I mean, how can we listen to the recordings in the playlist in a way that gives a sense of how they should sound, i.e. a baseline against which the type of speakers you're pointing to do poorly.

Anyway, it seems likely I don't need a baseline as there's little chance I have or will experience these claimed-by-certain-audiophiles-to-reveal-poor-recordings type of speakers.

With "typical high end loudspeakers" I'm thinking loudspeakers that cost north of say 20,000USD, where the focus is perhaps on aesthetics and exotic materials rather than science - so not necessarily high end in the true meaning of the word, but rather expensive speakers that audiophiles hold dearly, where "these speakers reveal poor recordings" are used as an excuse for ..not great sound.
In this case I fear there's something a bit circular in your argument. Bad sounding speakers sound bad regardless of cost. No argument from me.
 
In this case I fear there's something a bit circular in your argument. Bad sounding speakers sound bad regardless of cost. No argument from me.

Perhaps. What I am really attacking isn't a specific speaker as such, but the idea that "good speakers reveal bad recordings".
 
Perhaps. What I am really attacking isn't a specific speaker as such, but the idea that "good speakers reveal bad recordings".
I think this kind of thinking is in any case counter-productive to enjoying music. I have a policy of trying to avoid learning to hear defects in what I'm listening to. I'm already too skilled for my own good but it could be a lot worse.
 
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