Honestly the best speaker for rock and roll that I can think of would be the new McIntosh XRT30 which we have here on the floor. They are $25,000 per pair, so just out of your posted range. However...
The speakers are flat to 16 Hz., and will play 120 dB at 9 ft. in a moderately large room. This is about as loud as you can get without going to horns. And they are actually extremely efficient. We have run them on as little as 8 wpc. (300B monoblocks) quite successfully although so far all of the customers who have ordered them from us are using the MC1201 monoblocks (1200 wpc.) One customer will be using two pairs because he listens extremely loud in a very large room. McIntosh says it is perfectly safe to run three pairs of 1201's into the speakers: one into the bass cabinets, one into the mids, and one into the tweeters of the panels. Apparently the tweeters can take a _lot_ of power. You'd probably deafen yourself before you blow them.
They sound great too - honestly they are a really excellent, truly full range, dynamic speaker system that works well with a wide variety of equipment. Awesome on classical and choral, killer for serious rock and roll.
Photos:
http://www.symphonysound.com/XRT30/
(Note: I normally discourage putting a TV in between speakers - a couple of customers who came to hear this setup wanted to hear it for both stereo and home theater, so we brought a TV in from another room)
The natural comparison is to the Pipedreams, which some of our customers have been considering. I feel these guys outperform the Pipedreams, and for less money. Also the Pipedreams are not really single ended tube friendly. The woofers don't present a benign enough load, and the panels are somewhat capacitant because of the multi-driver array. I am not entirely sure how McIntosh has gotten around the capacitance issue in their panels but the panels love single ended tubes and the woofers love them even MORE. The woofer cabinets have an incredibly flat impedance and are super single ended friendly.
But if you're going to rock and roll, a big amp on these speakers would do the trick. Krell will certainly work just fine!
The speakers are flat to 16 Hz., and will play 120 dB at 9 ft. in a moderately large room. This is about as loud as you can get without going to horns. And they are actually extremely efficient. We have run them on as little as 8 wpc. (300B monoblocks) quite successfully although so far all of the customers who have ordered them from us are using the MC1201 monoblocks (1200 wpc.) One customer will be using two pairs because he listens extremely loud in a very large room. McIntosh says it is perfectly safe to run three pairs of 1201's into the speakers: one into the bass cabinets, one into the mids, and one into the tweeters of the panels. Apparently the tweeters can take a _lot_ of power. You'd probably deafen yourself before you blow them.
They sound great too - honestly they are a really excellent, truly full range, dynamic speaker system that works well with a wide variety of equipment. Awesome on classical and choral, killer for serious rock and roll.
Photos:
http://www.symphonysound.com/XRT30/
(Note: I normally discourage putting a TV in between speakers - a couple of customers who came to hear this setup wanted to hear it for both stereo and home theater, so we brought a TV in from another room)
The natural comparison is to the Pipedreams, which some of our customers have been considering. I feel these guys outperform the Pipedreams, and for less money. Also the Pipedreams are not really single ended tube friendly. The woofers don't present a benign enough load, and the panels are somewhat capacitant because of the multi-driver array. I am not entirely sure how McIntosh has gotten around the capacitance issue in their panels but the panels love single ended tubes and the woofers love them even MORE. The woofer cabinets have an incredibly flat impedance and are super single ended friendly.
But if you're going to rock and roll, a big amp on these speakers would do the trick. Krell will certainly work just fine!