roadcykler: I know what you mean. I grew up with heavy metal in the 80’s but evolved into many other genres over time, although heavy metal still hits me in the "soul"! I still go to as many metal concerts as I can. The reason that they play female vocals is to show off the speakers. It’s difficult to discern the subtleties of a speaker with all the distortion and countless effects added to metal music. In reality, the best way, at least for me to tell a good system/speaker from a bad one is to listen to a well recorded piano. It’s very difficult to duplicate a piano and make it sound live. If a system/speaker can do that and fool you, then they’ve got something good there!
Female vocals
What is it about female vocals that so many audiophiles adore? Many, many speaker reviews talk about female vocals at some point as if that was the zenith of recorded music. It's the same at audio shows. Just about every room is playing some version of the same, bland music. Just once I'd like to be drawn to a room because they were playing Tool or Opeth, but nooooo, it's jazz or Norah Jones.