dear shakeydeal and mapman
yes i am guilty of the pompous statement " rock or jazz or other over driven drivel " but come on , let's have a sense of humor shall we ? the larger point i am trying to express ( however pompously ) has to do with speaker systems and their capabilities . over the last 75 years the rise to prominence of the electric base , the electric guitar , the rock drum set , and the synthesizer has also given rise to the design of speaker systems which have the capabilities to reproduce the ear splitting gut pounding hyper dynamics that these instruments require . all well and good if that is what you want to listen to . personally electric guitars , electric bases , rock drum sets , and synthesizers drive me out of the room or club or concert venue screaming in pain and holding my hands over my ears . i realize that i am the only person on earth that is critical of rock , jazz , rhythm and blues , country , etc . but i find all such banal cacophonous noise depressing . i am not under some illusion that because an individual studies bach fugues or beethoven sonatas that he is somehow more sophisticated or evolved in his musical preferences . there simply is more music to appreciate in one single line of chopin than the entire catalog of rock and roll recordings since the birth of elvis . i do not need or desire a speaker system that has the capability to reproduce the pounding beat of a rock drum set . most hifi consumers apparently want their speaker systems to have the dynamics necessary to recreate the raw power of over amplified entertainment . the very best speaker systems that can play rock and jazz convincingly contain dynamic cone drivers in their midrange and midbase . the martin logan clx with two martin logan descent i subwoofers is an electrostatic hybrid stereo system . this speaker is startling in its ability to recreate accurate timbre . the acoustic grand piano is notoriously difficult to record and play back on a stereo system with any hint of realism . without exception all conventional cone drivers no matter how complex portray the striking of a piano string with the sound quality of a bell . but full range electrostatics sound much more like a hammer striking a real string . the difference is in the details . my point is i believe not every great speaker system is suitable for every kind of sound and music by design . the unfortunate consequence of owning the martin logan clx with two martin logan descent i subwoofers is that this system may not be as capable as other similarly priced designs for the reproduction of megadeath and twisted sister albums . darn .
