Put on some Van Halen and find out ! They actually play symphonic works better than anything I've ever heard. They do have a slight feeling of 'sound coming from a wall of paper'. With lots of power, they can indeed play quite loud. If you are into hard rock and that sort of thing, the Vandersteen line or some other dynamic might be for you. Matching a subwoofer may interfere with the maggies wonderful range to range coherence. I've never tried to mate a sub to them. A shortcoming of the 1.6's is that there is a 2-5 foot window of good sound. They sound thinner if you are not in the sweet spot. Excellent speakers, regardless of price.
