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Rock and Roll System

I am thinking of selling all and starting over. Spent lots of $$$ trying to recreate I guess what you would call the small club scene. In my past I played a some rock and roll with a couple of bands and that is what I am after. I think I will need speaker that will deliver about 110-120db's ( I know about the hearing thing ) I plan on using 1or 2 subs.

My room is 20 x 25 with a 9'ceiling. I am doing the room treatment thing as we speak.

My electronics arent the problem I dont think. I have a meridian 506.24 and a 541 processor, nbs cables, nordst connects, burmester amplifier and adcom 565 mono's for bottom end. Speakers are Old altec studio monitors, gallo and platinum audio reference, legacy focus, meridian active m60's martin logan quest and monolith 2's and my very beautiful and lovely sounding german physiks borderland's.

I like the horn top end feel of the altecs, love my martin logans for feeling and sound but they run out of steam, the focus are getting there but I get tired of listening after a few cds. The german physics are the best by far for jazz ( ben webster,miles,holliday) and piano and horn music be cause you are there in the middle of the group. This is holographic sound beyond belief.

But what I am after is something that can pass the van halen / ac-dc test that can play that with a realistic`slam when the guitars come in.
I like to play the old les paul with my stack of marshals with my music but my guitar amp sounds better than my mega $ system.
Do I look for dunlavy 5 or 6 or revel salon's. Didnt like the vmps cant liten to the duo's or do I go to pro audio? What about westlake audio. I live in the middle of nowhere
and a hi end dealer is 3-4 hrs away

Is there someone else like me out there. I mainly listen to classic rock and modern alternative.

Where does this journey end?

Thanks

Kelton
kelton
pls1
432 posts
 
My room is about 8000 cubic feet. I play a lot of AC/DC Metallica, Iron Maiden, Motorhead etc when not listening to classical. By measurement (not regular listening) my Dunlavy SC-Vs will do about 112-115 db and stay within the 250 watts rating if there are a quite a few people in the room. I think they sound great on both classical and rock (one of the major reasons I bought them was that I listen to both). Make sure you give them enough power. Most speaker damage at high volumes comes from the amps clipping and the distortion products frying the tweeters. I don't agree with Sean on electronics. Most heavy rock has enough grunge built into the recording.
nilthepill
842 posts
 
Ditto for Dunlavy V's. Although I switch-in the REL stadium subwoofer set at 46 HZ for the club scene in 20x14-12*12 L shaped room. I used Classe Amplification and oh yes, I use Stereo surround mode for on my SSP-50 to direct sound to the rear dunlavy-ii's also. The results is very slamming-club scene. Although I never dared go beyond 100 db, nor I need to in my room. I play system of a down or mettalica or Darude or The newdeal with complete satisfaction.
aroc
760 posts
 
Man. Talking about rock on Dunlavy V's me drool. I can only imagine what that must be like. So what amps are the Dunlavy V's owners using to push the V's?
seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
I too own a Les Paul and a Marshall 4x12 cabinet with Hughes&Kettner valve/solid hybrid head. It also has much more impact than my hifi, though I usually don't play my hifi too loud because of the hearing thing.

Part of the problem is that rock CDs are usually massively compressed in the CD mastering so they will sound OK on car radios, boom boxes etc. I am not sure high end hifi will ever make it sound live because of this compression.

I have also found that a "live, dynamic" sound requires a lot of low frequencies, so pick main speakers that are flat to at least 20Hz, or get a sub(s). I notice you've got this angle covered. Here again you're at the mercy of the recording/mixing/mastering engineers, though, since many CDs which should have these low frequencies don't. (e.g. they replace kick drum with crappy sampled sounds, record bass guitar directly with a cabinet simulator etc).

In summary, it sounds like you have good gear already, and buying more expensive gear may just highlight the deficiencies of the recordings. Ever wondered why some relatively cheap car stereos sound so foot-tapping .... they work well with the crummy source material.

As a caveat I should add that my experience is with much cheaper equipment (Mission/Cyrus/Audiolab/Densen/Spica/REL) but I think even my equipment shows how poor the recordings are, so I dread to think how they might sound on your gear.
nilthepill
842 posts
 
Aroc, I am using two classe CA-400's (one each for main and surround pair-very effortless) and one CAV-150 (for center). The REL has its own amp, only 100W albeit very efficient.
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