What are the best speakers for 80's hard rock?

Call Peter at PBN speakers he could hook you up

To clarify,

In my example contrasting MBL vs Soundlab, it was not my intention to suggest that Soundlab would fo a poor job with Van Halen.   It WAS my intention to suggest that the big MBLs would do a better job (at least to my taste).  The delta is probably more significant on the flip side - The MBL wouldn't be my first choice for chamber music, while the Soundllab might well be.  Both speakers sound good with a variety of source material, but the MBL (in particular) shines with loud rock music IMO.

BDP used his car analogy, and I think there's some merit there, tho I might go with a different variation on that.   Some performance cars are designer around higher output motors and live with higher weight.  Others prioritize low weight and might trade away horsepower to keep the whole thing light.  The design starting point influences the end point.

I do think the designers of the Soundlab and MBL started in very different places.  'Stats and omnis inherently offer different potential and I believe that the respective designers look to optimize the basics that they're working with.  In any event, they do sound very different from one another.  I prefer the MBLs to the Sounlabs (and probably anything else) on electric rock at high volume.  For a real-world variety of source material, I'd probably choose Soundlab.

That statement is based on my auditioning both speakers, not the observations re: design.

Klipsch would be an obvious choice if not for the horn. 

I'm a Klipschaholic so my opinion is biased -- but I think you could do a lot worse than Klipsch for a rock-friendly setup.  I find that McIntosh and Marantz both have a very warm sound which helps cut the horn brightness. My main system is a pair of Klipsch Forte Is with Crites crossovers and titanium tweeter and midrange diaphragms powered by a McIntosh MA6200 and I find it most satisfactory for my musical tastes: I was also quite impressed with a Marantz 2220 I keep around as a spare. (I should also note that my tastes in rock are more 70s Prog and blues rock -- think King Crimson and Robin Trower -- than arena rock and *ugh* hair metal).  

My Forte Is (which were cosmetically battered but sonically fine when I purchased them) cost $300 and I spent another $500 in updates.  A new set of Forte IIIs, which have just been released, will set you back $3600-4400 depending on the finish.  You might also be interested in the Forte's big brother, the Chorus: they typically go for $950-1250 on the market.  I've seen used Cornwalls going for $850+ ($4400/pr new) and LaScalas anywhere from $1k up ($8k a pair new).   And if you have the corners and the room for two refrigerator-sized speakers, used Klipschorns can be had for anywhere from $1500 to $5500 a pair -- a new set will run you $11k or so.  

In my example contrasting MBL vs Soundlab, it was not my intention to suggest that Soundlab would fo a poor job with Van Halen.   It WAS my intention to suggest that the big MBLs would do a better job (at least to my taste).  The delta is probably more significant on the flip side - The MBL wouldn't be my first choice for chamber music, while the Soundllab might well be.  Both speakers sound good with a variety of source material, but the MBL (in particular) shines with loud rock music IMO.

In the case of Sound Labs, the amp you use can make an enourmous difference! Because it has high impedances at low frequencies (where most of music's energy occurs) its helpful to have a tube amp because tubes can make power into higher impedances and solid state can't. This usually results in a pretty profound way that the speaker plays dynamics and bass impact. With the right amplifier a Sound Lab is hard to beat.

In that regard, I've also heard mbls sound pretty good, driven by large solid state amps in turn driven by a high quality tube preamp. However IME the mbls are not really that hard to drive with tubes; the lower efficiency numbers reflect the fact that at 1 meter, most of the sound made by the speaker is not being picked up by the microphone.

If you've auditioned both speakers using the same amp the chances are high that it was apples to oranges due to the amp/speaker interface (the amp favoring one speaker over the other). The idea that mbls 'shine' with loud rock music in particular (over other forms of music) sounds like a statement that is drifting to the world of mythology to me- people with Sound Labs and some of our larger amps tell me that they essentially have unlimited power and can't clip the amps before system is far too loud for them to be in the room. Sound Labs can do quite well at (and in fact are designed for ) higher volumes, with lots of bass impact (the A1s are good to 22Hz). Since the genre of music is unimportant; its my surmise that the jury is still out on this one as a proper comparison has never been made. It does sound like it would be an interesting thing to do though!

Atma,

This was a million miles from a controlled A-B; different systems, different rooms, different source material - tho each has been auditioned on multiple ocassions.  However, the two speaker systems sounded consistent in character over time despite the differences.  

The MBL is "in your face" at high volume with chest thump bass impact and an electric guitar that hangs in the air.  Along with varying degrees of bottom heavy octave to octave balance and not insignificant bass overhang.

The SoundLabs were much tidier for better and for worse.  None of the tonal  issues that bugged me but not nearly the visceral impact, either.

Im pretty confident (tho I can't be 100% certain) that amps, rooms, etc aren't the root cause here.  These are very different speaker systems and, for me, the MBLs are uniquely strong in the bass impact, macro dynamics, and 3D imaging that suit high SPL Rock n roll.

Just IME.