Audiophile Speakers for Rock, HipHop and Techno

Simple logic dictates that there exist no speakers better suited to particular genres of music. Bad and good tendencies apply across the spectrum.

yes and no, in my opinion

some speakers do better with some musical genres than others because their strengths and weaknesses are more befitting and tolerated with certain kinds of music

example:

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

conversely, speakers of that ilk can be found to be too unrefined, sloppy, inexact for properly re-creating small ensemble jazz, acoustic music/piano/guitar/woodwinds, sparely accompanied vocals, classical/orchestral music ... they don’t image well enough, everything is up front in an even plane no depth, distortion can be heard around leading edges (a plus in rock music) and thus, listeners like me find them rather intolerable and unable to deliver the purity of sound i seek in serious and long listening sessions

@jjss49

If a speaker is ’brash’ at some point you’ll eventually tire of that even with electronia or rock. What’s being ignored is that there are some excellent recordings in these genres that easily reveal speaker problems. Once revealed you’ll always hear it and it won’t matter the genre!

The idea that a certain speaker can favor a certain genre is the biggest myth in audio. If its good at rock but sucks at classical, you’ll find that if you play enough rock recordings it actually sucks at rock too.

like i said earlier, i don’t entirely disagree, but it really depends on use case/frequency/duration - imo to call it a myth is a little strong ... lots of people with nice hifi’s don’t sit there for hours listening intently, some want the excitement of live music, listen for a while, get their thrill, turn it off

we need to be careful not to impose our own usage behaviors and patterns, think all folks do as we do - pleasure from a hifi comes in many forms, usage occasions, situations

not to mention people hear differently, some clearly more preferring or more sensitive to some forms of distortion/tonality than others

not to belabour this discussion, but can we be precise on what we are talking about here? ... what the myth is or isn’t -- i am not arguing, just clarifying

no doubt any speaker design and its resultant sound profile will play the same way given an input signal (or musical type sent through it)... its sonic fingerprint applies to all genres - 100% agree

but that is not what i see this thread, and the op’s query, is about - it is about which speakers (not design processes, not designs, but finished speakers) may make certain genres sound better or worse to listeners using them

i do not believe it is a myth that certain speaker makes are better (or worse suited) to certain musical genres -- it is not an accident that sonus fabers, spendor classics, harbeths, are more favored and more often owned by listeners of classical, vocals, acoustic ensembles etc - and cerwin vegas, tektons, jbl’s are more favored by pop, rock, electronica listeners... the market speaks, people aren’t deaf, they have their preferences as to what makes music they like sound good to their ears

excellent video discussing the big legacy's...