What is the best HEAVY METAL speaker?

So true, Johnk. I choose #1 and #2. as I know you do.
I have a pair of JBL 4676-A that are waiting for me to find a much larger place.

I am a huge metal and heavy rock fan, among other music vices :) I enjoy Opeth, Entombed, Amorphis, Slayer, Rage Against the Machine, all the way to Norah Jones, KT Tunstall, and Andreas Vollenwieder. Music comes in many flavors, no need to be pidgeon-holed!

I highly suggest a pair of Revel f30s for the budget you have, or a pair of m20s and a pair of good subs, preferably servo (maybe old Velodyne). The nice thing is that you can crank these things way up, they take abuse, but still sound nice. AND parts are still available if you get a little crazy.

For the money invested, you won't beat what you hear.

Hi Koslekt1, check out Volbeat-Hang man's body count, this song rock's, get back to me hear after you listen to this song, tell me what you think of it, crank it up!

Atmasphere, I've been thinking about your always thoughtful comments, and I think you're missing something. I know that you are using the top of the line Classic Audio speaker, which is a design that I've admired several times at RMAF, particularly for small group jazz recordings and vocals. However, I would not regard it as an optimal transducer for digitally recorded, highly compressed metal in its current incarnation. For Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and other 70's metal and hard rock, it would be a nice speaker choice, but certainly not for Meshuggah, Animals As Leaders, and countless other current artists. If you are ever in Tucson, AZ, I'd be glad to show you what I mean.

You named some stuff in my personal collection, and I have Classic Audio Loudspeakers in my living room. They can shake the walls! What's nice about them is that you can play sustained high levels without compression and without straining the amp.

More: In Flames, Skepticism, Therion, Earth, Sunn (and incarnations thereof), Om, Opeth... I don't think anyone would be suggesting that a speaker is good for some metal and not other forms of metal.

Really, all music is composed of combinations of sine waves and transients. Its been shown mathematically that nearly all waveforms can be created by the right combination of sine waves. Its only the human ear/brain system that makes the distinction between various forms of music. The reproducers don't care so long as you stay within their range of linearity. So dynamic range is important, but on this matter metal rarely has the dynamic range of classical, and with peaks of 120 db on stage, classical can be just as loud although usually not at sustained levels.

I'm not sure what you were implying about digitally recorded, but FWIW, when analog technology is used you often get greater dynamic range. This is not because analog as more dynamic range (although it is so close its really not worth arguing about) its because digital recordings tend to have more compression because that is how the industry likes to handle it. Analog is a little more forgiving of overload and so while compression is still likely, its often just not as much.

I run an LP mastering operation and a recording studio BTW, so I see this stuff first-hand.