Progressive Rock

Often I read that rock (progressive or otherwise; is there regressive rock?) needs speakers with lots of bass. I think what is much more important is smooth, non-etched, non-tizzy highs & non-pushy or too-forward mids. There is enough of this in the music & you need to complement these features rather than highlight them. You also need to deal with close-miked vocals, which can sound terrible & acidic with over-detailed tweeters. Wilsons sound strident on rock, as the tweeters transmit all distortion loud & clear. I think Aerials, nice & polite, are very good on rock (I used to have 10ts). I also thought the Appogee Stages had a nice live sound while still smooth & involving.

I don't know what type of music I built my system around, but I still enjoy listing to progressive rock from the 70's whenever the mood strikes, because that's all I was into back then. Prog rock sounds pretty damn good comming out of my Basis TT, CJ EV-1 phono pre, Threshold pre,and power amp powering my ML Aerius i 's. My imagination tells me, if you're going to build around prog rock, go with CJ tubed pre with high powered CJ SS amp powering Vandersteen or Legacy, or the speakers Rgs92 suggested. Large woffers are the ticket. BTW has anyone listen to any Renaissance lately - Annie Haslam can sing her ass off.

Boy I hope this answer doesn't make me sound like a shill...

I'm not sure that you would want to assemble a system that sounded best with one type of music, unless of course that is the ONLY type of music you listen to. Eons ago I used to own Apogee Calipers. I never liked the way they sounded with rock but if I played a string quartet they were mesmerizing. I think you are better off trying to put together a well balanced system that sounds uniform with all genres of music.

Having said that...I heartly endorse Cerious Technologies speakers. The designer Bob Grost is a prog rock freak. When Bob was running Unity Audio he used to voice his speakers using Kraan and Gordon Giltrap albums. Peter Gabriel and Tool are always heavy in his rotation. He's an utter bass freak as well and able to extract articulate and deep low frequencies out of small footprint enclosures. I've been using his designs in our label's reference system for many years dating back to his days with Unity Audio. I moved up the UA food chain over the years culminating in a custom set of their top of the line PARMs. Now that he's started up Cerious Technologies I've jumped over to the Cerious Ceramic References and frankly they are the best speakers I've ever heard - and I've heard a lot. They do prog rock (and jazz and classical and...) quite nicely thank you.

So...if you are looking for something that could be construed as a "prog rock speaker" you should check out his forward thinking designs. Shortly you'll start seeing a buzz generated about his liquid ceramic cables as well. I tend to get a bit evangelical about his work so pardon the gushing.

Ken Golden
The Laser's Edge

Gentle Giant - 35th Anniversary Edition: Has anyone else checked out these remasters? I picked up Freehand this week. WOW!

Lazarus28, You are correct in saying that accuracy is not subjective - but it does depend on the definition. I believe it is measurable and real. But who on Audiogon is thinks their system isn't "accurate"? Whether they are right or wrong is another discussion.

Let's see if I can keep this on-topic...

I like rock. All kinds of it. And there some hardware that just doesn't do it for me when it comes to rock. When it comes to speakers, I don't think horns can rock. I don't think planars can rock. I don't think electrostats can rock. I don't think single-driver speakers can rock. However, you'll have people swear up-and-down that these are some of the most "accurate" speaker designs in production.

Who is right? Depends on how you define "accurate". Ruler-flat requency response? Phase shift? Time aligngment? Dynamic response? All of the above? It depends.