Okay I am certainly biased so if you don’t like ATC skip this post. You might want to look at speakers that are actually used to mix rock and roll, brands the artists and their engineers think best represents their “sound”. ATC is heavily used in studios that do rock- I know the pro version of the 40 was used to mix the last few Tool records, 50s used for nearly every Tom petty record, Pink Floyd used ATC 50s to 150s at various times and places, abbey road had been equipping more and more of their studios with ATC. The top 2 studios in LA are ATC as are the major rooms in Nashville like Blackbird.. Other brands to consider: barefoot (Burch Vig who did several Foo Fighters records), PMC ( a bit more favored in the hip hop world but also seen in places like universal music studios). The primary reason for ATC? Low distortion at higher SPL levels and that means excellent dynamics and able to maintain that over an 12- 18 hour working session without significant power compression. Also easy to repair with drivers and parts available going back 30 years+. JBL was heavily used 30-40 years ago, as were many horn speakers ( like Westlake and Auspurger) but today it’s mostly direct radiators in rock and country. Genelec was/is popular in the EU and especially in the 80s and 90s.
brad
Good Speakers for Rock and Roll Under 15K
I have nice speakers for acoustics, jazz, vocals, etc. but are not great for rock and roll. Would welcome any recommendations for speakers that do a great job with classic rock and roll. I will add some components in my system that might influence thinking:
New Audio Frontiers Tube Preamp, New Audio Frontiers 845 Tube Power Amp, Lampizator Atlantic DAC, Innuos Zenith Streamer, Tchernov cables.