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Is it speakers or my rock/metal music? Plus help ?

Hello everyone,



So 3 months or so ago I finally decided to allow myself what I've always wanted since being a teenager browsing Stereophile magazine at the library, a true pro setup.



Here's the thing, I primarily listen to heavy metal. All over the place from the typical Disturbed, Pantera, Metallica, to black metal such as Dimmu Borgir, death metal such as Nile, power metal like Rhapsody, Stratovarious, techno metal with bass, etc.



I've got about 10 cd's I've been listening to on the systems I've been demoing, over and over. One of them is the new Lady Gaga, and man that sounds great on anything. But the other CD's are hit or miss. The main thing I hear is a REVERB to TINNY type sound, like the band is playing off in the corner, or there is a medium echo in the music. This can be heard on all systems to a high (very annoying) degree, or a low degree. The more I turned up subs the more this went away. This also can be heard on cheap systems, but somewhat easily EQ'd away. None of the dealers have any EQ setup so I haven't been able to flirt with that except for the occasional treble knob, which doesn't help much. Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about or how to find the system that would best eliminate this? The dealers have had several hypotheses from the all too simple "crappy recording being revealed" (which I don't really believe is the case with a number of these such as new Stratovarius and Disturbed's Believe), too "high fi systems shoot for a wide sound stage" to "these are made more for classical, etc."



To help explain further I've listed a number of the systems that I've demoed below along with my notes. My apologies on not knowing the exact details of everything. The dealers up here are all VERY friendly, but also don't all exactly have great ability to switch equipment or actually even play the items that they would recommend to me.



**Second part of my question is also advice on the equipment below and any thoughts here or otherwise. My budget for the system (including surround sound, projector etc) is around 80-100k IF I'm totally blown away. Yes I know that is a lot of money. That budget is for a full audio/video system, however, what I'm really concerned about is 2 channel audio. I'm not nearly as picky about movies as I don't even know what to listen for and figure I'll be happy with anything I come up with in that regard (correct me if I'm wrong).



My room is fairly large, about 25x45x9 and naturally I haven't heard anything down there yet.



Here's what I've demoed in the shops:



Monitor Audio - Platinums, powered by a Sunfire amp (model unknown), Marantz CD player and preamp, as well as 2 JL Audio F212's, in a large room (20x35). Sounded VERY tinny. Wasn't impressed at all with the Monitors. The JL Audio subs sounded great though and put out a ton of bass.



Revel Salon 2 - powered by an older powerful Crown amp (model unknown), Marantz CD Player and preamp, as well as 2 JL Audio F212's in a large room (20x35x10). Similar setup to the above. One of the best sounding setups yet. There was only a bit of the tininess/reverb sound on this system, but enough for me to question what is going on. Plus the Revels are very pricey (18k) so I want to make sure I get it right. The bass oddly wasn't nearly as impactful with the Salon2's, no idea why, I just didn't seem blown away by it at all, and I had the subs turned up near 3/4 volume.



Paradigm - Signature S8 powered by a McIntosh two channel amp and Mc preamp (CD Player unknown) along with 1 JL Audio F212, in a smallish room (12x15x10). Now, this was probably the best sounding setup of them all. At one point listening to these I had a moment where I was moved, all of a sudden everything came together. I keep thinking this is the system, but I read bad things about the Mc and the Paradigm or not nearly in the same class as some of the speakers so I'm wondering if it was the ROOM. Only one sub and it seemed to just kick hard and the tininess/reverb was to a minimum, especially after the owner made a cable swap (seemed to actually make a difference) based on my complaints. Was it the Mcintosh amps??



I've also listened to Bryston Model 2's, Wilsons (some set around 50k), and B&W (something around 12k), with decent amps but only average subs. Was underwhelmed with all of those, the Model T's sounded the best.



The one thing I'm pretty for sure on is that the JL subs easily carried the day in most situations, so I think I'm going to spring for 2 Gotham G213 and assume that will at least totally take care of the bass part of things. I'm hoping to demo the Paradigms again and see if I get the same feeling, and also the Revels again as well as perhaps try the Legacy higher end stuff. Any other recommendations and general advice would be greatly appreciated.



Aaron

nobleknight
psag
518 posts
 
Its an interesting question, whether any one speaker can do it all. My feeling is that a few speakers can aspire to do this, but it would be a compromise at best.

People who love rock and especially metal need a particular kind of speaker, in order to get that very visceral kind of delivery. The kind that slams you into your seat and pounds you into submission, while retaining the textures and dynamics. Yes, that's what we need.

Audiophile speakers generally display other virtues.
dave_72
1,399 posts
 
As far as Klipsch goes, good speakers, but they lack the quality and refinement of sound the high end JBL speakers have. Granted the JBLs are more expensive, but you get what you pay for. I would only get the Heritage series, really.
Both brands will pin you up against the wall if need be. I'm listening to Motörhead on my JBLs as of this writing, and it sounds great to me. Another good rock speaker was the B&W 801D. Unfortunately, it's out of production.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,807 posts
 
Gentlemen!

Loudspeakers do not care what you put through them and neither do the electronics.

The only thing you might want if you play a lot of metal is good dynamic range coupled with good low end. But these are things that are good for classical and jazz too.

The idea that metal is poorly recorded is nonsense. That's not the problem. FWIW, a friend on mine (who pretty much founded the metal scene in the Twin Cities) was adamant that you had to get metal on LP whenever you could, as the cymbals played better at high volumes relative to the CDs. I can create of pretty long list of metal recordings that have excellent sound. I am quite guilty of playing them at audio shows too!

IMO the real issue is whether the system becomes oppressive at high volume levels. If it does not you are home free!

To this end I use a fairly high efficiency loudspeaker, the Classic Audio Loudspeaker, and tube amplifiers. IMO/IME this combination can play metal and classical with authority and without being oppressive, in a way that I simply cannot get transistors to do on the same system.

In short, if you can't get metal to sound right you probably can't get classical or jazz to sound right either.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,211 posts
 
I agree 100% with Atmasphere on this one. There are many ways to accomplish what is needed for metal/rock and if done right it will accommodate all other genres equally well.

Being able to handle rock/metal as well as all other genres well at appropriate volumes has been a principle driver for me over the last few years. All my systems/speakers do it pretty well but my main system with the large OHM F5s is the one that does it best on the largest scale with no indication of stress or strain ever.

Scale is an important concept for home audio that seldom gets any attention. Its a lot easier and probably a lot cheaper to do good sound on a smaller scale than on a larger one. Scale alone may be the single best indicator of how hard the task of getting good sound will be and what the cost to achieve ends up being.

Not to say getting good sound on a small scale is easy, but it is much easier and there any many ways to go that might end up being the best in the end. Small scale done well will probably most always not cost as much as large scale done well.

The extreme of taking things to a small scale to make good sound cost effective is headphones. Many ways to skin the good sound cat with a pair of headphones, though they will always sound different than speakers.

Here is the best single test CD I know of for classical and metal together in one high quality recording overall.
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