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

[Mart68]

This is a pretty famous example I guess

The dark reason why Metallica made an album with no bass

Highlighting the real reason why Metallica didn't include any bass on their fourth album '...And Justice For All' following the death of Cliff Burton in 1986.

faroutmagazine.co.uk

But I agree, there are perhaps fewer than one would first think. And some are actually just recorded with higher dynamic range / less compression (if you can avoid the remasters), so the bass appears if you turn up the volume a bit.

I only have that album on vinyl so not played it in years and years.

One thing I wonder about, was there not anyone else around when it was being made who might say to them 'Your hearing's shot lads, you've got the highs turned up way too much.'

If you take Jimmy Page Led Zep remasters ('Mothership') the common myth is that these sound 'Bright' because Page is deaf. But they're not toppy they just have a lot of compression and people use the word 'Bright' to describe the subjective effect of that.

I'm pretty sure that Page was not remastering them alone in a cave on a mountain top, and there was no-one else there to say 'Sounds a bit toppy that does, Jimmy.'

 

[Sokel]

It's 100% the recordings that suffer,it's not a speaker thing as long as they are adequate.

As time passes one can only compare and sometimes it seems like a lost art.
Please,please,have a listen at 1972's Child in Time from Made in Japan album.

Live,with all the difficulties it presents and it's pure silk,no matter the SLP and great level changes.
Give it enough SPL and you're there,nothing is very compressed,everything is clearly distinguishable even when everyone is banging their hearts out.

It puts a lot of today's stuff in shame,50 years after.

Even the 2014 remaster is nice,only showing how good the base work was!

 

[Tell]

Do we have examples of rock recordings that genuinely lack bass?

Off the top of my head I can think of a couple that I used to think lacked bass until I got proper speakers and amplifier:

Oasis - 'Definitely Maybe'
Georgia Satellites - 'In The Land Of Salvation And Sin'

I knew someone was going to ask But no I don't since I really don't listen that much to rock, but I do remember having listening to some stuff in the past and reacting to the lack of bass. But maybe it's just the guitars that have been brought up to much giving a very screechy sound taking over the bass. And yeah, you got some examples of it, with Metallica (and Lars Ulrich) as the worst example. Gonna have a listen to your two tips though, thanks for those!
So again, if the mix and master is properly made (which it maybe is nowadays) it should sound just fine on a good pair of speakers

 

[sigbergaudio]

It's 100% the recordings that suffer,it's not a speaker thing as long as they are adequate.

I don't agree with this, rock (including older recordings) can definitely benefit greatly from more than "adequate" speakers.

 

[Sokel]

I don't agree with this, rock (including older recordings) can definitely benefit greatly from more than "adequate" speakers.

"Adequate" is personal I think.
I think it's evident in my posts that what I consider as adequate (given that FR and directivity is ok) is nothing shorter of a big-ish 3-way (or more) with way too much headroom in amplification.

But that's mine with my main genre being classical.
So...

 

[dweeeeb2]

Please,please,have a listen at 1972's Child in Time from Made in Japan album.

Those drums are great.

 

[Mart68]

"Adequate" is personal I think.
I think it's evident in my posts that what I consider as adequate (given that FR and directivity is ok) is nothing shorter of a big-ish 3-way (or more) with way too much headroom in amplification.

But that's mine with my main genre being classical.
So...

And mine - with my main genres being rock and funk.

No replacement for displacement.