Progressive Rock

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.

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!

Ooops, that's Deus ex Machina

great thread . . . I'm a prog freak from the 70's and most of my music collection (ie about 40%) is prog, with the balance being Jazz, Folks, Classical, Bluegrass, etc.

I had concluded recently I would set up my main rig for optimal acoustic/jazz/voice listening. My premise is most prog doesn't challenge a system because of the quality of recording that is typical, and previously mentioned. That said, I have found that prog needs deep bass, and must play loud - so that's been my primary prerequisite. In tuning my systems for prog listening I've found that the power amp and speakers are more important than the front end. My old Infinity Monitor IIa speakers that I drove with a Phase Linear 400 in the 70's were wonderful for Prog, and still are. I still have the Monitors, but am driving them with a Bedini 100.100. They are flat from 22Hz to 26kHz. My Totem Sttafs image wonderfully and I can listen to them all day for most music, but weren't as satisfying for Prog because of the absence of deep bass, until I added a Rel Storm III. I'm still afraid to play them really loud so I don't consider them optimal. I'm experimenting with other speaker/amp combinations to see if I can improve on the Monitor/Bedini system.

The majority of my collection is rock and I have built my system accordingly. I have the VR4 GenIII spkrs that Tvad mentioned mated with an Ayre V-1x amp and modded Meridian CDP. I'm currently on a tube preamp search & am now auditioning a Thor.

I was at the CES earlier this year & had a very heavy bass track on a rock song that I carried with me & asked to be played & guess which room it sounded the best in? Yep, with the VR SR's. Interestingly, Albert was using big tube amps (VAC) to power these, so synergy is key.

As important as synergy is, personal taste should be what dictates your choices but if I had $12k to spend on spkrs, I would also audition the Avalon Eidolon, which can be had used at that price and also the Montana KAS, along with the VR SR's.