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.

 

[Romario]

This was a fun read. The question is: Do you need high end speakers for metal?

Key take aways by posters ( and I exagerate, just for fun)
I don't listen to metal but still have an opinion why metallists should here me out (because my opinion matters)
Deep purple from 50+years ago is considered metal. (Because I stopped listening to guitar after 1980)
Metal is listened by younger public with less money to spend. (Allthough the biggest metal attractions are all 60+ years old)

So, that answers the question.

But I enjoyed the metallist posts, so thank you all.

 

[Sokel]

Deep purple from 50+years ago is considered metal. (Because I stopped listening to guitar after 1980)

Oh, I have to so defend this.
So,yes, a 50 years ago live recording puts in shame similar schemes bands of today.

You want comparison I guess and you're lucky that my nephew likes to listen to this stuff through my gear.
So compare it with ANY Evanescence* (we compare megabuck bands to be fair, not garage made stuff) live (live is where true artists shine if they have the skill and competent crew to record them) and then prove me wrong.

*(I believe that's after 1980 )

 

[Romario]

I adore Made in Japan, I know it back to front, I'm a big fan of Richie Blackmore's guitar playing, but I don't consider it metal by today's standards ( and neither does Deep Purple). And that was the thread starting point

I totally agree about your "live is where the true artist shines"comment (and Amy Lee can surely sing) But it doesn't answer the topicstarter's question. That's what I meant to say.

 

[Sokel]

I adore Made in Japan, I know it back to front, I'm a big fan of Richie Blackmore's guitar playing, but I don't consider it metal by today's standards ( and neither does Deep Purple). And that was the thread starting point

I totally agree about your "live is where the true artist shines"comment (and Amy Lee can surely sing) But it doesn't answer the topicstarter's question. That's what I meant to say.

We are in agreement then.
And to tell the truth, my participation to the thread was with the thinking that lighter stuff (anything is lighter than classical which is my genre) should be easy to be played back if the usual classical rules are followed (minus the very high crest factor, heavy metal does not need as much, it's more on the continuous, dense side so they can get away with that) .

(of course DP were not heavy metal (thread also mentions "rock" ), and Blackmore was a truly classical educated musician, despite his obsession about medieval stuff only, I mean you can tell)

 

[Romario]

Classical music has different challenges than rock and metal. I listen to all kinds of stuff but metal is the hardest to get right because of the compression ( mostly) and the dense instrumentation, for me at least. One still likes a good seperation for a full experience.

 

[sigbergaudio]

I don't remember what we went through in this thread, so this may have been said already, but there are a couple of reasons why rock/metal is difficult.

1. There is often a "wall of sound" that can be challenging to portray as individual instruments, and it also often gets muddy/muffled is there's even the slightest problem with linearity, especially in the say 100-1khz area.
2. Systems often lack punch and attack (energy in the 50-500hz area) that is easily identified with this type of music
3. A lot of rock and metal is supposed to be aggressive and in your face. To achieve this experience without making it too harsh and unpleasant especially at higher volume is a difficult balance and also requires a system that can play without compression and distortion.

Overall both tonal balance, soundstage&imaging as well as headroom / dynamic capacity is important for this genre, and systems "fall apart" in a quite revealing way if things aren't right.

 

[goat76]

And to tell the truth, my participation to the thread was with the thinking that lighter stuff (anything is lighter than classical which is my genre) should be easy to be played back if the usual classical rules are followed (minus the very high crest factor, heavy metal does not need as much, it's more on the continuous, dense side so they can get away with that) .

While it's true that classical music is often more compositionally complex than rock music, it doesn’t mean it's more challenging for the loudspeakers when it comes to reproducing the audio signal. I don't think it's a coincidence that the question "Can these speakers handle rock music?" is more commonly asked than "Can these speakers handle classical music?". The constant hard-hitting dynamics and the demand of keeping things separated in a dense rock mix are way more challenging for the reproducing system, and if the loudspeakers can handle that, they will easily cope with the less dense challenge of reproducing classical music as well. When the different layerings of typical distorted rock instruments (which are competing for the same frequency range) are easily heard, it's some sort of "calmness to the chaos" that makes the music more easily to follow and less fatiguing in the long run.

In my opinion, if a loudspeaker can handle dense rock music better than another loudspeaker, it's simply better at reproducing the audio signal, and proof that it will handle everything else coming its way with ease. I think loudspeakers should always be tested with dense rock compositions, but most manufacturers choose to demo their loudspeakers with non-challenging music material, such as overly clean-sounding "sparse" jazz.

 

[Sokel]

While it's true that classical music is often more compositionally complex than rock music, it doesn’t mean it's more challenging for the loudspeakers when it comes to reproducing the audio signal. I don't think it's a coincidence that the question "Can these speakers handle rock music?" is more commonly asked than "Can these speakers handle classical music?". The constant hard-hitting dynamics and the demand of keeping things separated in a dense rock mix are way more challenging for the reproducing system, and if the loudspeakers can handle that, they will easily cope with the less dense challenge of reproducing classical music as well. When the different layerings of typical distorted rock instruments (which are competing for the same frequency range) are easily heard, it's some sort of "calmness to the chaos" that makes the music more easily to follow and less fatiguing in the long run.

In my opinion, if a loudspeaker can handle dense rock music better than another loudspeaker, it's simply better at reproducing the audio signal, and proof that it will handle everything else coming its way with ease. I think loudspeakers should always be tested with dense rock compositions, but most manufacturers choose to demo their loudspeakers with non-challenging music material, such as overly clean-sounding "sparse" jazz.

I have it the complete way around.
If a speaker can do a full Carmina Burana from the lowest to the highest while staying linear for example or Ride of the Valkyries, is good enough.
And that's not an extreme examples, just popular ones.

Aside from everything else, there's times that over 100 different sound sources (with their harmonics,inharmonics, etc,the whole deal) come to play.
So...

 

[ZolaIII]

Come on people R'N'R delivered so many gernes including birth of electronic music and so on. It's how good system is same as for classic and DR goes the same. For example Jethro Tull Locomotive Breath has DR of 17. There are also lot of broken material (especially in Metal) so chose your masters best you can.

 

[whereisbrian]

That's right. All Steve Albini's masters are good on my loudspeakers.

For exemple, The Jesus Lizard, Shellac, In Utero, various Pixies, The Ex, and so on.

 

[goat76]

That's right. All Steve Albini's masters are good on my loudspeakers.

For exemple, The Jesus Lizard, Shellac, In Utero, various Pixies, The Ex, and so on.

It seems like you and I have the same taste in music!

My two favorite bands are The Jesus Lizard and Shellac. I love The Ex, and In Utero and Surfer Rosa are the most honest, raw-sounding rock recordings that Nirvana and Pixies have done, thanks to Steve Albini.

 

[goat76]

I have it the complete way around.
If a speaker can do a full Carmina Burana from the lowest to the highest while staying linear for example or Ride of the Valkyries, is good enough.
And that's not an extreme examples, just popular ones.

Aside from everything else, there's times that over 100 different sound sources (with their harmonics,inharmonics, etc,the whole deal) come to play.
So...

That was what I was talking about. Many people confuse the complexity of the music composition with the complexity of reproducing the audio signal.

An intense, dense, and transient-rich rock song will more likely reveal if the loudspeaker will struggle, and that throughout the whole track, than what a classical track will do with some sporadic dynamic bursts “here and there” like in your examples above.

The same goes with the different layerings in the recording, if the speakers can keep all the competing distorted and intense played instruments clearly separated, they will also easily handle all the nuances of many different instruments in a classical recording.

 

[MatrixS2000]

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:

https://www.sigbergaudio.com/blogs/news/do-you-need-high-end-loudspeakers-for-rock-and-heavy-metal

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?

Just found this thread and have not had a chance to read it in its entirety, but will do so over the next couple of days. I find this thread particularly interesting because this is the genre of most of my listening. So I wanted to offer my opinion now, even though I have not read the entire thread.

So my answers to your questions:
1 - Expensive ≠ good
2 - I think it is a combination of both, but I lean more towards the recordings mattering more.
3 - Measurements matter, there is no hiding from them, a speaker with good measurements will sound better for any genre.