Does Heavy Metal music benefit from a high end audio system?

A more interesting question is what does the $100K system get you that the $10K does not.

BTW - I have a feeling Led Zeppelin will still be in heavy rotation 100 years from now.

Exactly right, better said :)

All music benefits from a hi res system. But do you know what heavy metal is supposed to sound like? Iron Maiden "British Steel" is quite impressive. Great sound stage and separation of instruments. Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are often very good too. But like all music, some is not so good. It's obvious to me that some music styles seem to benefit more. Accoustic comes to mind? But I suspect that it shows more because it is generally a less busy style which is more easily heard

Iron Maiden "British Steel"

That would have been Judas Priest, not Iron Maiden.

I think you pose an interesting question and I've always felt that people who listen primarily to rock and metal would be better served by systems more closely related to the better sound reinforcement products.  This assumes you have the space and privacy to listen at loud levels, which is impossible unless you have a private house. If you look at the new stuff Mark Levinson is doing, it strongly resembles sound reinforcement with large woofers, horns and tri-amping with an external crossover.  I also think the larger Wilsons are aimed at the well-to-do boomer that likes rock music played at louder levels.  

Why wouldn't a "better" setup benefit ANY genre?

The recording of whatever matters. Maybe todays rap/hip hop/pop that's made with Casio computer sound clips is the music that doesn't matter? 

I was going to put up Fabio’s system, but decided to go with a Heavy Metal showtune by AC/DC (sort of) instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVDzbGsAXHw

DeKay

Yes it does!  As always, the source/ recording quality dictates the results. 

@csmgolf 

That would have been Judas Priest, not Iron Maiden.

Oops! You are right. I had the vinyl given to me and I had not listened to it til about 6 mos ago. I was shocked at how good it sounds.

I agree with giantsalami - that user name is heavy metal!

Music is music and I have used a variety of songs to audition equipment and Black Sabbath War Pigs and Led Zepplin Boogie with Stu are typically on the list as well as songs from Steely Dan, Herbie Hancock and others.

A higher end system with higher levels the improved dynamics and details can actually give the illusion the volume is not as high when doing A vs B tests.

WoW! Not only equipment snobs, but music snobs as well. Kudos, just how do some of you, with such narrow acceptance of the enjoyment of life, have any correspondence with others? I guess there are those who wish not to expand their limited experience.

I don't get the point of the question. Are you suggesting a different recording method was used that gets away from the norm? Sure it's nothing like free form Jazz scales, but get down to the nitty gritty and they all start with the same basic recording techniques. Some studios are better equipped than others, but then everything sounds the best it can with high end equipment.

My personal experience says yes, but than I think any music benefits from a good system.

i got Shake Your Money Maker cranked up a bit on my mid fi system with just 1.2 KW a side…..sounds great……

whaaaaaat did you say ?

War Pigs is a great HM song to test a hi-fi system. 

Heavy Metal only benefits from an extended power outage.

As a fact AC/DC has their own sound system that they put into storage then bring it out when they go back on tour>>>>

Hell yes,  only makes sense. 

A kick ass system (whatever the cost) doesn’t care what is played through it… a somewhat insulting question assuming heavy metal is too low brow to deserve a great system.

Are 1968 Blue Cheer regarded as Heavy Metal? Probably not for the HM purist. However my son in law and 18 yr old grandson were over a couple of nights ago to share a bottle or three of red. I consider I have a well above average vinyl set up.
Grandson was (to use a modern term I dislike) blown away by Vincebus Eruptum. It sounds better than it did on the old Garrard TT and department store amp and speakers I had back then.

My good friend loves heavy rock guitar, screaming riffs from Prince or orgasmic mashups from classic Springsteen or Bowie.  We'd jam those vinyls and CDs all night long.  No problem.  Then I moved in 1.7i Maggies into my rig.  Whoa.  What went wrong?  Well, I AB'd with my old pair of DefTech 9080xs which do loud and deep bass like a Sunday afternoon stroll.  We were rocking again.  Then back to the Maggies (crossed over to a pair of 10" Martin Login subs). I heard EVERYTHING.  And it sounded very different.  Let's be honest, it sounded terrible.  I turned to my friend and asked if maybe, it was how it was engineered/mixed?  Like,  tracks were really just thrown together, one track on top of another to maybe generate more power, more sound?  He shrugged his shoulders and kept digging the music. Well, I thought so.  I could hear it now.  I was just left thinking for the first time that what I often think is good is really muddled, covered-up sound, with only a small percentage of what was mixed-recorded being revealed.  Moving up to more resolving systems destroys that vail of ignorance to actually allow poorly mixed music to show itself.  OTOH, well mixed rock (prog mostly...), is a revelation. I spun  Days of Future Past and couldn't move until the dead wax  broke my trance.

the bigger and more dynamic the music, the more a serious, mature large scale hifi system will separate itself from a more modest system. big music really stresses room and system set-up and signal path refinement.

really no different than a bad sounding live performance in a hall with bad acoustics or just not well set up. heavy metal can sound bad, or good.

heavy metal played loud sounds like a bunch of noise if the system is not sorted out. i suppose if you listen medicated then it does not matter that much.

Led Zeppelin or AC/DC played at warp 9 on my large system sounds awesome. you can push it and it does not turn to mush. you will never know how heavy metal recordings are suppose to sound unless you hear them on a good large scale system. that music needs headroom in the A/C power grid, amplification, source quality and room acoustics. better reproduction serves heavy metal just like large scale classical.

If you play heavy metal on a 100k system or an 10k: it’s practically the same ,because  a lot of recordings are very bad…(some exeptions)

If you play heavy metal on a 100k system or an 10k: it’s practically the same ,because  a lot of recordings are very bad…(some exeptions)

It’s all about the amount of money you spend on little bottles of contact enhancer. If you are spending <$1000 on a 5ml bottle, all genres of music will sound like poop. 

Much of the newer metal is recorded very well. Parkway Drive, Soulfly, Machine Head all have very well thought out and produced recordings. My system is extremely resolving and Incubus / Science sounds so good I listen to it often. Depending on what you consider metal, some of todays heavy music beats the pants off anything recorded 30 years ago. Listen to  Nothing but Thieves / Broken Machine and you can hear the possibilities for tonality and separation from todays metal.

In general any genre will benefit from better system. What’s more interesting is the fact that Heavy Metal benefits more from solid state systems than from tubes. I have both kinds of systems and got proof of that fact many times. 

Yes, it will.

It’s the recording/pressing/mastering...more so than the system....some rock or heavy metal sounds like a congested mess on any system, Jmo and my ears....I do not listen much to it, and favor jazz, bluegrass, classical, and some country...mostly the older stuff. To me, this form of music is recorded better and also sounds better, even on a modest system. Also, to spend as much on a system as you would spend on a small home is just ridiculous, to gain maybe a fraction of better sound. 

Only if you can get the RATT out of it...

Hello,
I truly believe it does. The better the system the better the detail and separation. That’s easy to do with Jazz or Classical. Heavy metal need clean power. You will hear things you have never heard before while getting the Led out. If you don’t have a super resolved system go to a high end store and try it out. 

The many complex nuances and intricate syncopated rhythms that are often never heard in HM would be revealed in all their magnificence when played on very high end audio system.

Do HM disciples actually think that Led Zeppelin was HM? What?

"you will never know how heavy metal recordings are suppose to sound unless you hear them on a good large scale system."

Yes, like, when we scale-up to stadium seating.  I question how it is we expect to experience rock concert reproduction at home with any system.  With resolving systems we can get close to jazz clubs, chamber music, some well-recorded 9th row symphonies, and of course, close-miked vocals mixed for the center, etc.   But AC/DC in a 15 x 20 room, that is an actual shared space with other humans? Not to mention innocent bystanders up and down the neighborhood. "Large scale" reproduction enough to hear resolute sound from that band or any band like it can be done, yes.  On a space station.    

The statement that any genre of music sounds better on S.S. vs tubes or the other way around is absurd. Unless, I guess, you are willing to say that there exists only one sound per type of amp. 

@audition__audi
 It could be absurd in theory, but I done lots of practical experiments on this topic, so my opinion is pretty strong about it…. Oh, and I’m not alone with this conclusion…

https://geargods.net/editorials/why-solid-state-amps-are-better-than-tube-for-metal/#

Apologies to all for my ignorance re Heavy Metal.  I probably like a few Heavy Medal songs like from Led Zeppelin.  The question arose when I heard a few loud convulsed yelling screeching Heavy Metal songs on the radio which for me grates my soul- like nails in the chalkboard. I get that it’s full of energy and folks can get lost in the fray, but was curious if better audio systems benefited the music.

Thanks all for scratching my curiosity itch.

Just as much as the sleepy garbage the vast majority here claim to like. 100% sure the music is secondary to the hardware though.
very kind of the op to make a thread to trash music they don't like.

@audiodidact

"Large scale" reproduction enough to hear resolute sound from that band or any band like it can be done, yes. On a space station.

i disagree.

you have live concerts confused with playback media, whether digital, vinyl or tape. large scale systems, such as mine, in a purpose built, dedicated, 21’ x 29’ x 11’ room with plenty of driver surface, power grid and amplification headroom can certainly do full justice to a heavy metal recording.

how do you suppose they mix and master the recording? it has to work on domestic speakers.

but no one is saying it lives up to the live event. it’s reproduced music.

btw; a space station has tiny interior spaces, and then outside no atmosphere. not music friendly. just say’n.

OTOH space station movie soundtracks are many times beautiful sounding.

Yes it certainly does - I play a lot of metal on a very high-end system -  just like any other genre.... good sound is good sound! 

The idea that tubes and RNR don't mix is silly at best. Most people were still using tube amps in 1969.many good guitarists still do. My 250 CJ wpc was bested by a 35wpc tube amp. Only wish I had known that my first 55-58 yrs on earth. The tube amp was just to wet my appetite to see what all the fuss was about.  Didn't expect it to be that good. My main music is Classic rock. But I am more on the hard Rock * & HM. . I've learned to enjoy other forms of music with a good system which has been a long time in the making. But my system sounds better now than ever on whatever I play. HM, R&R, blue grass, classical, Jazz. Thats with tubes

You haven't heard heavy metal until you've heard 4 watts single ended. THUNDER!!!!! THUNDER!!!!!

Not to dig at the genre although I’m not a fan, does Heavy Metal music benefit from an higher resolution systems? I’m not talking about comparing to a cheap box store system, rather, would one benefit moving from an audiophile quality $5-10k to a $100k+system?

I can not speak to all subgenres of metal, but I listen to a lot of progressive and technical metal, and yes, a high end, high resolution system benefits these subgenres.

These subgenres, tend to be better recorded than most metal, has better dynamics, more subtlety, more detail, lots of emotion, etc, than most subgenres of metal, so yes, played on a better system, will benefit them.

Metal is not just one thing. Bands like I am referring to, have a very high level of musicianship (often jaw dropping), compose very complex music, play and compose with lots of emotion.

Bands like: Pain of Salvation, The Contortionist, Cynic, Tesseract, Riverside, Caligula’s Horse, Haken, Thank You Scientist, and quite a few others.

These bands may have the surface veneer of playing metal, but they are playing very sophisticated music.

Let me make one more addition to this post, just for some context.

I also listen to a lot of jazz (post bop, fusion, avant-garde), classical (modern, avant-garde, contemporary), and prog (avant-prog, classic prog, Zeuhl, Canterbury). So I am not coming from the ’metal fan-boy’ position, but of someone who likes all sorts of very well played and complex music and some metal has those attributes.

I have never appreciated Metallica as much as I have after putting together my “high end” system. There is no struggle with playing their albums at the levels they were written to be experienced. Nothing helps heavy metal like large woofers and horns. Eveyone should experience heavy metal on the new La Scalas. 

@mikelavigne 

"large scale systems, such as mine, in a purpose built, dedicated, 21’ x 29’ x 11’ room with plenty of driver surface, power grid and amplification headroom"

That's no room...(say it with me..) that's a space station!

@tablejockey ....I disagree with that conclusion, but....one needs to be 'selective' as usual... ;)

@artemus_5 ,

If you are enjoying the Judas Priest "British Steel" album, give a listen to their 2nd studio release, the 1976 album, "Sad Wings of Destiny".  A very well mixed and engineered slab of vinyl that was the beginnings of "Heavy Metal".  Another band that is on the heavy side with great engineering and mixes is the Swedish band Opeth.

That's no room...(say it with me..) that's a space station!

I have been there, trust me, a space station is what audiophiles settle for when they don't have the budget for Mike's room. Put it this way, when the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation wanted a system suitable for the Enterprise it turned out the Holodeck was easier and cheaper. 

@audiodidact

@millercarbon

thanks guys, for the kind comments.

i feel lucky to enjoy my room. and the room tuning-sweat equity part of it, which cost me almost nothing, and took twelve years of learning and effort, is really what makes it special. having a big budget (spread out over a couple of decades of system building) is only a part of it. the pieces need to have synergy. all the little things acoustically have to be right to handle large scale music without it falling apart as things get cooking.

i do listen to heavy metal (that fits my taste) at high SPL’s and enjoy it a great deal. much of my drive to sell my old house and buy the new place 18 years ago, was so i could do justice to large scale music and not have the room hold the musical enjoyment back.

it’s a large commitment but i was all in.

I grew up a metal only fan loved all of it. Even though my listening habits and rotation have changed I still will put on some metal. I would not say that on my reference system it is bad but it definitely sound different from what my ears remember. Have to realize my memory is with it played loud at a party, in a car, or even at home never siting in the sweet spot. Bose speakers hanging from the celling and my chair under them. I have to admit I think it sounds better in my car than at home right now but that is only based on my memory. I have listened to new releases like the new Iron Maiden at home where I have now built in memory and I does sound great! IMO It does sound much better at low to moderate volume, I find I turn up the Doors and turn down Maiden.

@ allenf1963

I appreciate the recommendation. However I must disagree that it was the beginning of Heavy metal. Zep & Sabbath are generally known as the beginning  (1969). But IMO, Iron Butterfly  was HM and were playing before Zep & Sabbath. And I'm sure there were others. That said, in the '60's & early 70's the genre was mostly known as hard Rock hard. There was lots of hard rock too with too many artists to mention. IMO, HM is not easily defined, especially in the 60's & 70's. IE, where does hard rock end and HM begin?