Audiophile Speakers for Rock, HipHop and Techno

@jjss49

If a speaker is ’brash’ at some point you’ll eventually tire of that even with electronia or rock. What’s being ignored is that there are some excellent recordings in these genres that easily reveal speaker problems. Once revealed you’ll always hear it and it won’t matter the genre!

The idea that a certain speaker can favor a certain genre is the biggest myth in audio. If its good at rock but sucks at classical, you’ll find that if you play enough rock recordings it actually sucks at rock too.

like i said earlier, i don’t entirely disagree, but it really depends on use case/frequency/duration - imo to call it a myth is a little strong ... lots of people with nice hifi’s don’t sit there for hours listening intently, some want the excitement of live music, listen for a while, get their thrill, turn it off

we need to be careful not to impose our own usage behaviors and patterns, think all folks do as we do - pleasure from a hifi comes in many forms, usage occasions, situations

not to mention people hear differently, some clearly more preferring or more sensitive to some forms of distortion/tonality than others

I haven't owned a pair of speakers since my JBL's or Definitive Techs that sounded good for the majority of rock recordings but think that's partially to most rock isn't recorded that well to begin with.

The Dynaudio's I had were the worst.

imo to call it a myth is a little strong ... lots of people with nice hifi’s don’t sit there for hours listening intently, some want the excitement of live music, listen for a while, get their thrill, turn it off

we need to be careful not to impose our own usage behaviors and patterns, think all folks do as we do - pleasure from a hifi comes in many forms, usage occasions, situations

not to mention people hear differently, some clearly more preferring or more sensitive to some forms of distortion/tonality than others

'Myth' isn't strong. It might not be strong enough! All I'm saying' all I've been saying is there is literally no way to design a speaker or anything electronic to favor a certain genre. If that were possible the market would look a lot different. Anytime there is a coloration present it will affect all genres equally for a simple reason: musicians all use the same bandwidth; all forms of music have the same use of lows, mids and highs.

not to belabour this discussion, but can we be precise on what we are talking about here? ... what the myth is or isn’t -- i am not arguing, just clarifying

no doubt any speaker design and its resultant sound profile will play the same way given an input signal (or musical type sent through it)... its sonic fingerprint applies to all genres - 100% agree

but that is not what i see this thread, and the op’s query, is about - it is about which speakers (not design processes, not designs, but finished speakers) may make certain genres sound better or worse to listeners using them

i do not believe it is a myth that certain speaker makes are better (or worse suited) to certain musical genres -- it is not an accident that sonus fabers, spendor classics, harbeths, are more favored and more often owned by listeners of classical, vocals, acoustic ensembles etc - and cerwin vegas, tektons, jbl’s are more favored by pop, rock, electronica listeners... the market speaks, people aren’t deaf, they have their preferences as to what makes music they like sound good to their ears

it is about which speakers (not design processes, not designs, but finished speakers) may make certain genres sound better or worse to listeners using them

Such a speaker might make a certain recording sound better but its impossible for it to do that for an entire genre! I think this myth persists on account of certain recordings rather than an entire genre.