Progressive Rock

Ooops, that's Deus ex Machina

Listen to lots of prog on my system. Since I'm going to see the Flower Kings this weekend been playing lots of stuff with Roine Stolt. This type of music has never sounded so enjoyable since I got a tube amp!

Prog can be damn near anything (depending on who you ask). Alot of it will sound pretty hashy (not a drug reference) on any high resolution system. As stated earlier, this is often because of analog transfer crimes. Most of the RIO (Rock In Opposition) arm of prog (Univers Zero, Henry Cow (start w/ Leg end) Thinking Plague, Nimal, Hamster Theatre, Curlew, Blast, Octavo, Volapuk, Miriodor, Present) sound pretty delicious on any decent rig. Some exceptions to the old "it sounds horrible on cd rule",: Kollektiv/ 1st... Embryo/ Rocksession... Guru Guru/ Kanguru... PFM/ Per un Amico... Terje Rypdal/ Whenever I Seem to be Far Away...New Trolls/ Ut... Goblin/ Roller... Kraan/ Live 74... Wolf/ Saturation Point... Thirsty Moon/ You'll Never Come Back.. (Most all the Can stuff is so great that fidelity almost doesn't matter, haven't heard the new remasters yet, any opinions out there?). Some newer stuff that sounds great: Ganger/ Hammock Style... Tortoise... Anglegard... Uzva... Alamaailman Vasarat... Ui... Crater... Dues ex Machina... Tipographica... Nels Cline... DFA... Cul de Sac (ECIM). You'll want something not painfully bright that can deliver high quality thud and good textural detail, but it's not easy to get really get specific about what gear works best since there's such a huge range of engineering priorities out there under the big prog rock umbrella.

DREAM THEATER RULES! Anyway, I play ALOT of
prog rock on drums, RUSH, ELP, DREAM THEATER, YES,
GENISIS, etc. Right now, my system is known as a
MID-FI. (4)Kenwood Basic M2A power amps,
(4)Sony ES CX90ES 200 disc CD changers,
(2)Sony ES JA3ES Minidisc recorders WITH
2 mic inputs on the front of EACH of them,
for recording my drums of coarse,
Pioneer Elite C-91 Pre-Amp,
Yamaha MX-1000 Power Amp, as well as other stuff.
Feel free to experiment with other gear,
although the DAC`s in the Sony CD Changers are
VERY GOOD, it sounds like a LP,
the signal-to-noise is 116db.
And Infinity speakers.

Did I build this for Prog Rock? - I built it for everything, and Prog Rock is always close by, and I don't have to make excuses.
While my speakers may not be what you think of as Prog Rock big-thump speakers, with the sub up-a-bit, and the crossover set a little higher than normal, DSOTM sounds quite outrageous thank you.
With the monster image that comes from the ML's, as well with how fast they are with transients from synthesizers (try some Brain Salad Surgery), at warp volume, life is good.
Now, if only they had "welcome back my friends..." on DVD.

for what it's worth, both pink floyd and peter gabriel use ATC active monitors at home and in their studios. why not listen to the albums on the same speakers upon which they're mixed/mastered?

have a look at my system - while i'm by no means a prog freak, i do own moody blues, rush, peter gabriel, pink floyd, syd barrett, etc and they sounds amazing (as does everything else)

Wow. I had know idea there were that many of you out there. Thanks for the responses. No, I'm not about to blow 12K on speakers just yet. The point I was trying to make is that many of the people selling high end equipment are not targeting me or my musical taste with their products - hence the dilema. I almost always listen before buying. My current system now consist of the Adcom 5802 amp with 750 pre, big Energy floorstanding speakers (can't bust 'em), MSB Link DAC 3, Velodyne sub and good/moderate cables. My question is, giving the poor recording quality of the 70's stuff, especially Genesis, my favorite, is there really any point in continuing the upgrade path. Or as I suspect, have the I reached the old proverbial "point of diminishing returns"? Your responses, as always are appreciated. By the way, I use live performances of the Musical Box as my benchmark. They recreate 70 vintage Genesis concerts to the tee. Matt...

sorry 'bout that ... I guess in the 70's ELP, Yes, Genesis never left my Technics TT, 'til I discovered Springsteen back then. Perhaps, my current love of Radiohead and post-Radiohead bands was based on that early diet of PROG.

Anyways, given the limitations of the early recordings, poor transfer to CD etc., you really will need to audition many of your favorite recordings on any potential components, rather than rely on other opinions. At the budget you're looking at, you will quickly discover that some of your favorite music may not be listenable at this level (unfortunately). If you really are into stuff from the 70's, a very good TT will be likely necessary along with pristine albums. But, in the end you want to listen to as much as possible when you audition, as you would hate to spend that much and find that half of your albums or CD's are unlistenable once you make your purchase. (I would often take 30 or more CD's for auditioning to really see what certain equipment was capable of ... perhaps, it drove some owners crazy !!!!) As well, remember that your own tastes and preferences can change and I wouldn't want to completely pigeon hole my system for a single genre or a few artists, in case you discover newer musical tastes.

From my own experience ... I know many people thought I was crazy looking at some of the equipment I auditioned, as alternative rock, and rock are not felt to be worthy of such equipment by some. In the end, I am amazed how listenable most of my stuff is on my very revealing system. As noted above, the size and budget of the artist is often inversely related to the quality of the recording. I mean it can be tough listening to most U2 CD's (despite their millions and great producers [e.g. Lanois, Eno etc.]), yet some of the low-fi recordings from many alternative artists are just beautiful to hear through my Kharmas even though they were recorded on a shoe-string budget in some basement.

PROG is a four letter word !

Rock is not high-end-ish music.
It's more complicated to record well and therefore it often doesn't sound as good as Jazz or Classical.

Revdog, prog bands even with big contracts such as Jethro Tull havn't been recorded well on the most cases.

Contrary, Can being always an undergrownd band without any mega-million contracts, has excellent recordings (every single one of them), thanks to the Holger Czukay's extra talent of a recording engineer(no extra spendings to producers etc...). The reasons that it couldn't be played in NYC CES are
1)they're unknown to the public
2)they have a lot of sophisticated cacophonic reefs that would only be understandable to an experienced listener or musician.

FZ having some relation to a mix of everything also didn't sound well on many of his albums.

My budget was alot less than $12,000 for speakers, I put a $5000 price on my entire rig. I ended up with Paradigm Studio 60 speakers, they imaged reasonably well, had the grunt down low and decent high frequency response. Been very happy with these and they're the only remaining piece after 6 years on the upgrade treadmill. They always responded to improvements upstream, never were the weak link. Getting to the point though where they're next to go.
Although alot of the prog releases are of mediocre recording quality, the remasters are often terrific!
The Rhino remasters of ELP, The Ocean digital remasters of Yes, the mini LP Fripp remasters of King Crimson and to a lesser degree, the definitive remasters of Genesis are all of high quality and shine on good audio gear. Porcupine Tree's catalog is high quality, Floyds stuff has always been top shelf.
Guess my preference for a progressive rock system is full range speakers and electronics with good imaging. Within reasonable $$ limits tho. Many audiophiles have $15,000 dollar systems and $1000 of CD's. I have over 2000 CD's ($20,000) and a $5000 system, wouldn't have it the other way.

I guess I would say that my system was built for that purpose as well since prog rock, new and old makes up a significant portion of my collection. But ultimately, I found that the things that make the great prog rock great, are the same things that make orchestral and certain big band works enjoyable, at least to me - the ebb and flow, the large scale dynamics, and the intricacy. So I selected components capable of both detail and bombast, and landed with Jeff Rowland and Aesthetix for amplification, Simaudio and VPI for sources, and Wilson Audio for speakers. And yes, I always bring the first Gentle Giant album along to audition equipment.

Cheers,

My whole system was put together for progressive rock! I think the most dramatic impact falls to the speakers. I have Chapman T7's which really rock and throw a giant soundstage which is perfect for Floydian tunes. I've also heard the Legacy Focus 20/20's which were amazing with the Porcupine Tree I threw at them during the demo. They are on my short list for my next speakers. They really do rock! My other gear is tubes which are a wonderful combo with Prog. My Music Reference RM9II amp is beautiful with plenty of tube power for those wild Prog passages.

Keep in mind that most Prog is not well recorded, especially the 70's stuff. Most prog bands don't get the big contracts and so things are done on a shoestring. With the great equipment a good amount of the music sounds like it was recorded in a garage, which it very well might have been. With the big dollar bands like Floyd etc, things are truly amazing.

I always take Prog to my demos, and most shops are happy to let me listen, and some even ask, "Who is this?!"

Of course, the ultimate is vinyl, and thankfully bands like Porcupine Tree are still releasing material on vinyl. I love my Rega P25!

Prog on!