so many speakers

This brings to mind my personal philosophy (which will no doubt irk the "source first" gang) is that job one is to find a decent sounding room and place a nice set of speakers in there that work really well in the space and optimally placed acoustically within said space-add room treatments as needed. Next, find an amp that really likes driving these speakers. If you got that, you're 90% home and well prepared to hear the differences upstream with any gear selection you should choose. If you don't, prepare to join the brigade of gear swapping zombies that is AudioGon.

There might be speakers made to a specific type of music but I wouldn't have any speaker made that way. Ever.

Take a long, hard look at all the different types of speakers and see how they portray the human voice, and then acoustic instruments. If they can do that in a convincing manner, then they should be able to handle almost any kind of music genre you can think of, clipping aside (that's where the amp comes into play).

From my experience, I prefer widebanders with some kind of tweeter augmentation. The payoff is coherence, imaging, timing (some of your English types refer to it as PRaT) and a wonderful sense of involvement.

Any decent amp can play the middle man so make sure your source is up to par with what you want to hear and how you want to hear it. Remember the old adage: garbage in, garbage out.

That's my take on the whole affair and it's what I've settled for. Good luck in what you chose and don't be a big hurry to upgrade.

All the best,
Nonoise

For a moment I thought you asked WHY are there so many speakers on the market. That would have been one of the best questions ever, and I was prepared to bet all my Tiny Tim LPs that no one would get the right answer. Close but no cigar!
Cheers

I think the "find a decent sounding room" solution is great. The room right off the bar at the Paris Opera House is perfect. Unfortunately, I don't live anywhere near France and somehow I doubt they'd let me hang out there with my hifi. I settle for my book, CD, and art lined listening/great room...it sounds great (hence the name), and instead of room treatment I just wear puffy clothes and mess up my hair. The specific answer is: There are so many speakers because it's a LARGE WORLD OUT THERE with many people making things. I'm firmly in the camp that my rig should reproduce whatever I want to listen to regardless of the content...it's reasonably full range (I use a good sub), clear, accurate, and can go loud enough. Plus it has plenty of little lights and tubes and stuff so it's hip. Very important.