Good Speakers for Rock and Roll Under 15K

I’m still an Ohm Walsh fan in particular for these things, if you can even find a pair for sale these days, especially for their overall good sound, versatility and ability to bring a recording into your room and make it sound like live performers there.

If one’s preference is to take you into the recording more than to take the recording into your room, then more conventional box designs are well suited for the job. I lean towards larger neutral sounding speakers that can go loud and clear here. KEF meta and Revel are two of my current favorites, but many many others would do as well. Any good, reputable speaker that is truly "good" and that is driven by a good quality amp that is similarly up to the job, will do rock and roll very well along with all the rest. I’d shoot for good speakers in general, not ones advertised to excel with only some kinds of music.

Speakers alone can’t get you all the way. YOu need good speakers and a good amp to drive them well at louder volume levels suitable for a lot of rock music.  A good modern Class D amp will provide a lot of bang for the buck.  Good luck and cheers!

Legacy Audio Focus XD, Klipsch Klipschorn, Vaughn Line Array Major (need a subwoofer, but for $9000 per pair and 100 dB sensitivity, worth the look), JBL 4367 are all worth the look. We have reviewed all of them, and all are exceptional. 

Would welcome any recommendations for speakers that do a great job with classic rock and roll.

What does this mean? Before recommending speakers, you have to know what the OP requires from a rock and roll speaker compared to one for, say, orchestra.

OP said thanks and goodbye at 413 pm on 1/15. 

Use Zu Audo. 

$15K is a good budget to work with.

Are you open to considering a distributed bass array?

Regardless of which speakers you settle on (and I do look forward to learning your choice) a DBA will take you places you’ve never been with your system/sound. And it’s applicable to all music genres. So if you like to rock out, it will definitely, absolutely, punch that ticket.

Yamaha NS5000
PS Audio FR-20

They are also are Fabulous with every other genre

Bump, sorry bit chilly for a motorcycle ride so I’m reviving old threads. My buddies hated my speakers playing R&R and they all went Klipsch if they could and Cerwyn Vega on a budget. Most of us enjoy rock while driving and bass is everywhere. Accurate speakers don’t boost the mid bass so sound lame in comparison, subs don’t really help kick drum so if you want more sizzle and boom with your hard rock I can’t think of anything better than klipsch forte or lascala’s.

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