Good Speakers for Rock and Roll Under 15K

@atmasphere is correct. No reputable recording studio would pick monitors that favor one type of music or another. ATC, especially their active speakers, can play very loud with very low levels of distortion while being extremely reliable; why they are found in many of the best studios. And yes, a well recorded orchestra at concert levels will place a greater demand on speakers than most rock performances.

Yet another vote for ATC. Prior to the active ATC SCM50ASLT speakers in my main listening room, I had Legacy Focus XD speakers. These ATC speakers are about half the size of the XDs, don’t require power amps (I didn’t like running the XDs full range active), sound better and actually play much louder (way beyond what is safe for my hearing) without distortion.

I’m equally impressed with ATC’s SCM20ASL pro active monitors in my recording studio.

I’m a classic rock keyboard and bass player. Although I enjoy all genres of music, my first love is classic rock.

Finally, I want to point out that passive ATC SCM40 speakers won the Arizona Audio Video Speaker Fest in 2019 against seven other mostly more expensive, highly regarded speakers. The presenter was not playing the normal audiophile music but mostly classic rock. Towards the end, some of the attendees wanted the volume really cranked up. The SCM40s filled the large room with clean, undistorted sound without breathing hard. They were driven with ATC’s P1 stereo amp (100W/channel).

ATC SCM50ASLT active speakers retail for $22k. Discount or used bring these down pretty close to $15k. The passive version, what the OP probably is looking for, retails for $16k, well under $15k with discount or used. With that said, current revision ATC 50/100/150 speakers, active or passive, rarely come up used; folks that buy them keep them. I would be one example.

I've directly compared the 50 vs the Legacy Focus in my home. I much prefer the ATC in all respects. Of course, IMHO as a classic rock musician and recording engineer.

Speaking of recording, both ATC and Legacy sell pro versions to the pro audio market. I'm guessing the ratio of ATC vs Legacy in most of the world's best recording studios would be around 50 to 1.

Here's an example of ATCs clients:

ATC Client List

No one with direct ATC experience, either active or passive, would call them polite.

To quote Brad Lunde, US ATC importer: "The company founder/chief engineer (driver inventor) Billy Woodman had a specific target in mind back in the 70s and 80s: the wide dynamics of American speakers (JBLs, Altecs, etc) and the high resolution of British speakers (Quad, 70’s era KEF). The fault of many of these earlier American speakers is they played loud but sounded awful. Inversely many of the British speakers had great sound quality but would not play loud enough for rock and roll."

Yes, a great way to describe the dynamics of ATC speakers would be "speakers that can hurt you before you can hurt them".