Audiophile Speakers for Rock, HipHop and Techno

@mrteeves 

Hip hop and techno are usually compressed and not super dynamic

I could not disagree more

Apologies for my earlier bombasticity

To be sure we're even talking about the same thing, and more importantly 

If you'd care to enjoy a quasi religious experience this weekend, and perhaps be reminded why you love this hobby?

Find some time when everyone's out.

Pour yourself a stiff one, wrap yourself a fat one. Whatevs floats your boat.  Once you've consumed and warmed your system up, play the second track above, 'Freak' at the maximum volume you consider enjoyable.

( Its incredibly well produced so you can safely crank it. Transients are well controlled)

I promise you a thrilling ride

Then come back and say whether electronica requires a system to throw a soundstage?😁

If you're driven to buy the album, would recommend cd over vinyl, in this instance. 

A speaker that succeeds with bass-driven electronica requires greater dynamic range, sub bass extension and mid bass slam than a design intended for music made exclusively by acoustic instruments. Many speakers that are perfectly adequate for other genres are incapable of playing hip hop or electronica in a way that is as satisfying as a well implemented car audio installation. Klipsch la Scala are a prime example of a fundamentally flawed design that censors any sub bass. Such a speaker may meet the audiophile definition of dynamic, but this fails to capture the need for fast, weighty and extended bass capable speakers that can do justice to bass-driven electronica and hip hop. For me dynamic is also a descriptor of whether a speaker can energise a room into the sub 20hz zone without ’one note’ colourations.

My personal system goal is to recreate the effect of a powerful dance pa of the Richard Long variety, playing in a large warehouse to a thousand plus people.

That’s why i use Focal speakers and Boulder power amps. Ime no valve power amp can achieve the necessary ’fear factor’ you get from plumbing the depths with a big rig in a big room.

If you strictly adhere to a definition of dynamics that excludes this, i submit that most punters would disagree.

@jheppe815

some EDM/Electronic mixes are massive / "big console" type mixes that are very fun to experience with extended bass and a not overly compressed mix. Your senses are sometimes overwhelmed (in a good way) by these huge mixes played back at decent levels on a big system in a big, well treated room.

Can i recommend ’Oto’ by Fluke...in case you aren’t already familiar with it?

It’s truly astonishing, one magnificent soundscape after another. And the mastering is sublime, you can really crank the volume because it sounds so restrained and natural. The bass is extended and perfectly controlled, the sub bass is percussive at times, or swelling naturally at others. My favourite track gives one the impression of floating downstream, being carried by the current towards two rock giants hurling thunderbolts at each other....another ends with you floating in space, as warp beasts of mind boggling size gently drift by, and below you.

You’re just not going to get that with bookshelf speakers or, perhaps controversially, valve power amps. While i adore a valve pre, It takes solid state power to bring the fear factor to the pit of your stomach and quicken your pulse.

klipsches tektons zus - these are ’lively’ brash sounding speakers, excel with drum snaps, forward presentation, not the most refined, not the best at imaging - so they work well with electronic music, rock, ’party tunes’ - they are good with the beat, impact, energizing, in-your-face sound which is the essence and goodness of that kind of music

100% wrong

In-yer-face sounding speakers are dreadful for electronica. A presentation that fatigues is the opposite of what's required.

You need musicality, scale and control.

I have enormous respect for Atmasphere, but he's also wrong on this.

I've lost count of the number of speakers ($ power amps) I've heard that might excel with jazz or classical- and utterly fail to capture the scale, bass slam and extension, and overall dynamism required for electronica. Bookshelf speakers are equally irrelevant to the successful presentation of the genre.

You need big floorstanders and big, solid state power amps. 

Don't take the word of otherwise knowledgeable people who don't know the genre. 

Two examples of what you are missing ☺

It most certainly isn't a myth that many speakers, most even, don't provide sufficiently extended bass to do justice to electronica.

There is no specific voicing required, just additional low frequency extension.

Even in the pro sound field, the subwoofers deployed by big sound systems have moved away from the 'Big Bertha's to the Danley Labhorns, precisely because they go deeper, as required by modern dance music.

@atmasphere ​

Mystical Experiences' by The Infinity Project....had a listen.

Not bad, kinda ambient, bass, while extended, very loose and lacking punch, drive and definition.

Try the Jamie Jones 4z remix of 'Tainted Love' by Soft Cell ?​​​​​​

@atmasphere 

Yes i certainly preferred that...we'd call that genre 'goa trance'.

If you like the 808 sound, try this?

All Ablaze, by Ian Brown

Meanwhile, getting back to bass extension, solidity, punch😁

We have a genre known as drum and bass. Here the melody is often in the sub-bass. This also happens to be my favourite tune by anyone.

The bass is astonishing