Progressive Rock

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.

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.

PROG is a four letter word !

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.

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...