Best Speaker for classical music

Any speaker can play R&R, blues, grundge, hiphop, reggie
Jazz requires a bit more finesse.
CM (at least full blown symphony orchestra) requires even more finesse/nuances/fidelity vs all other musical genres.
Full symphony orchestra requires a ~~special speaker~~Midrange demanding.

@mozartfan Any speaker can play classical too. The more finesse the speaker has, the better it plays all genres. Seriously- if you could find a way to make a speaker genre specific you'd be a millionaire overnight. The reason it can't be done is musicians all use the same set of frequencies and all humans have the same set of hearing perceptual rules.


Its simply a mistake to lump all 'R&R, blues, grundge, hiphop, reggie' into the same spot when there is so much variety and nuance in modern music- and so much variance in recording quality, just as we've seen in classical music since the dawn of hifi. You want a nice rock recording- side one of King Crimson's Islands- you'll hear nuance, detail (if you have a good pressing) - it sounds like they are in the room. Or try a Pink Island edition of ELP's first album... Keith Emerson BTW was a master at the keyboard and integrated a variety of classical pieces into his compositions. And not surprisingly, if you want to hear these recordings at their best a speaker that does classical very well is going to do it, simply because the speaker does not care what music you play- and neither do the amps or preamps!

Ralph,

while your argument is fundamentally sound, only Jazz and Classical are typically performed without electronic support. Rock, Pop, Reggae, and even ELP always went through large speaker arrays with multiple crossovers and other electronic aids in the transmission chain. For acoustical music, any break in the frequency responce or -horrible thought- phase shifts in the audible spectrum severely interfere with one‘s enjoyment. So: ideally horn or other single driver systems, if need be two-ways, anything more complex usually doesn‘t get there.
I guess I am preaching to the choir given your OTL design philosophy…

while your argument is fundamentally sound, only Jazz and Classical are typically performed without electronic support. Rock, Pop, Reggae, and even ELP always went through large speaker arrays with multiple crossovers and other electronic aids in the transmission chain.

@antigrunge2

If the bands were performing live that's likely true. But when recorded, often not. The bands are keenly aware of how PAs wreck the sound! We don't use a PA when recording our band. When you listen to that King Crimson LP I just mentioned its obvious they used a minimal mic'ing technique. Pink Floyd recorded an album for the BBC that used only a Decca tree, same as they might have used for an orchestra. That album is arguably their best recorded but they've always had a good studio technique.


If you get a nice import copy of the Beatles stuff, even though its not real stereo its obvious they cared a lot about the sound. I've used Porcupine Tree as demos at shows for years. I also use the first Its a Beautiful Day LP because everyone seems to have heard White Bird- and its nice to demo what it really sounds like.


Some years back on this thread I mentioned Black Sabbath- their LP is a solid demo of how you don't have to have acoustic instruments to nevertheless get a good recording. What is important in recording regardless of the genre is **intention**. 

Talk to James at Raven Audio. https://www.ravenaudio.com/

He designed and developed the CeLest and Corvus monitors and tower. He is a audio engineer and a classically trained musician.
He has worked the DSO and many many Grammy winning AE and Conductors.

You owe it to your self to hear these speakers.

@atmasphere,

fair enough, they did though use elctric guitars and keyboards in the studio as far as I can tell. My point is actually about frequency band overlaps and phase shifts as a result of crossovers and electronic enhancements in the transmission chain,, both on recordings and playback. Most studios don’t even care about absolute polarity much, a significant number of recordings are out of polarity and you hear it on a good system.