Good Speakers for Rock and Roll Under 15K

Yamaha NS5000
PS Audio FR-20

They are also are Fabulous with every other genre

$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.

Use Zu Audo. 

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

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.

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. 

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!

For your electronics you will definitely need very efficient speakers. My system is much like yours, mainly tube. The 845s are limiting your choices but certainly provide a very musical, engaging signal. No one has mentioned ZU Definition IV but believe me, with the right amplification, which you have, they are dynamic as hell with outstanding bass. Sean Casey has a term-shove. Regardless of the critics who regard these as shouty, I can say without reservation that is a fallacy derived from listening to these through the wrong amplification. There is a pair listed at TMR.

Altec Lansing 604C.

I’ve been using them for 46 years.

At 101db, they get very loud very fast with little juice or distortion, though that is only one of their virtues. If they were good enough for Bruce Botnick (The Doors, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, etc) they might just be good enough for you.

A pair of drivers with stock crossovers can be had for $1,200 - $2,400. Cabs about $1,800. Mastering Lab crossovers are another $1,200.

Use the balance saved to buy your wife something even more expensive.

I listen to 98% rock.

Given your equipment, I would consider something with powered woofers or more.

My current favorites are the Paradigm Founder 120H.  All the bass you could possibly want, powered from 300hz down, and those tubes will give you a nice combo up top.  They put you in the first 5 rows, have a huge soundstage but they also have built in ARC room correction.  Just a heck of a package.

I would also have the Legacy Focus and Signature XD’s on your list, great rock speakers that can thump, but you don’t get the EQ built in.  Fun Speakers.  

Same with the big Golden Ear Tritons with those powered woofers.

With many of the horn speakers, as long as you are comfortable using a sub to give you that bottom end thump, you will likely also be happy.  

I’ve heard the Tektons.  I think the Double Impact is a heck of a speakers for the money, my issues with Tektons are the law of diminishing returns kicks in faster than most as you move up the line.  They just don’t sound “that” much better.  That, and the various feelings about Tekton customer support.

Yamaha NS-5000 is the detail power speaker. It is also fairly rare so it will perform better on the resale market. They handle 600 watts maximum so rock and roll will sound excellent. The design is handsome and space efficient for WAF. The woofer reveals drum/bass textures better than any I have heard. To get the best out of them you will need at least 400 watts. They used their technology resources to make beryllium obsolete despite those 200,000 NS-1000's with Be tweeters they sold. 

Good speakers can play anything. Period.

My musical tastes are very rock-centric.  60s, "classic" rock, heavy metal, punk, electronic, alt-country...

I have a pair of Volti Rivals in one room and Fleetwood Devilles in the other.  Both are superb with everything I listen to (and I'm running the Devilles with a 40 wpc tube amp).  If you ever have heard the Rivals as a show, you have probably heard them with a 20 wpc Border Patrol amp.  Both rigs sound "live". 

Can you measure dynamics and punch of a speaker?

@mofojo

Yes. There is something called ’thermal compression’ that has to do with the voice coil heating with bass notes and the like. When the voice coil heats, its harder for the amp to put current through it. The voice coil heats and cools with individual bass notes. So the result is less punch and its quite measurable.

The more efficient the speaker, the less this is a problem, generally speaking. You can do things on the design side like vented magnets to try to reduce this problem, but at the end of the day you tend to get more punch with more efficient speakers.

IMO/IME there really isn’t any reason to have a low efficiency speaker unless small size is really important. Higher efficiency speakers don’t take a back seat in terms of resolution, in fact can be more revealing. You do get into a problem making bass, and that can get expensive to overcome (for example TAD used to make the 15" 1602 driver, which was a good $2000 per driver, but were 97dB and had a free air resonance of 22Hz).

However, you can overcome the bass thing with subs. If you set up a distributed bass array, you can have good bass from 80Hz and down handled by the subs. Since each sub is handling only 1/4 of the total bass energy, they are less likely to get into thermal compression problems.

I'm not the expert that is for sure, but I have definitely heard some speakers do it for me on rock that others do not.  But that is the great thing about this hobby is we have different flavors for people, even stuff that is imperfect may be someone's cup of tea.   I  have never heard Klipsch, with the exception of 1982 when I heard the big horns, I was just 14 years old so it was a long time ago but I thought they sound great with rock.  But back then I didn't have a reference to compare them with.  Anyway, aren't the Klipsch Cornwalls and Forte speakers supposed to sound great with rock?   

I was thinking last night that there might be alcohol involved.

deep-33, why are you so antagonistic?  Most of us are here to learn and/or possibly help other people. Go flex your muscle somewhere else....

@deep_333 

Nothing that the likes of you would say could bother me, and as for Ralph, he is one of the most highly respected men on this forum as well as the high-end audio industry. That is something that you will never be.

Guess I’m saying the Pioneers didn’t show a mid bass dipping the graphs but they sure as hell didn’t have any rhythm in that arena. The Focals rock out with the best of them IMO of course using many different amplifiers and front ends. 

 Can you measure dynamics and punch of a speaker? I have no idea. I pretty much just know what a flat frequency response looks like on a graph and know that 5 out of 5 will all sound different with similar responses IME. My Tad S-1Ex sucked with most rock metal. They have a similarly flat frequency response as my Focals. The Pioneers have very little punch and comparatively suck for rock against the Focals. Play some acoustic  Clapton or similar and the baby Tads sound amazing! I would argue the Focals still have more life but not quite the depth. 

@deep_333 ​​​​@atmasphere 

Ralph, all that I can say is you are the best, and it took a putz like deep333 to make you even come close to bragging, which you have every right to do, but you never do. He picked the wrong target this time!

Any tech dude in the manufacturing space seems to think he knows everything there is to know about music (anything he doesn’t know is all one big myth!). Why don’t you have a seat someday and talk to guys like Levinson (too late for the late Schweikert) who actually understands instruments/music? You may gather more insight.

@deep_333 Yeah, I play string bass and keyboards- played in orchestras, jazz and folk bands, recorded my own albums, mastered LPs on my LP mastering system and recorded/produced other's recordings. I’ve got 4 patents so far, been making amps and preamps that get good reviews and awards in the high end press for the last 45 years. I’m one of those guys ’like Levinson’. I don’t usually talk this way, but you seemed to need to hear it.

@gregjacob

I have New Audio Frontiers 211 SE amp (20 Watts) with the Stradivari Preamp and have no problem playing Rock loudly and clearly with the Wolf Von Langa SON speakers. They are field coil speakers that really control bass and I have the speakers on LiveVibe Rhythm Jr stands which really help with dynamics. The SONs are a bit over your budget at $19k or so but they play very well with NAF for all types of music.

@mofojo Big myths die hard. So this does not surprise me- I get pushback on it all the time. But it comes down to something very simple, which is can you find a designer who can say what parameters exactly will favor a certain genre?

I’ve been doing this 45 years and got an engineering degree early on. I know a lot of designers and none of them make any claims to this effect. Since I design amps and preamps I see things a bit differently, thru the eyes of my test equipment. Once that signal is in the amp, the amp does not care what it is, it just amplifies it. I suspect the same thing for speakers- they have no taste, they just move as the amp tells them.

Any tech dude in the manufacturing space seems to think he knows everything there is to know about music (anything he doesn’t know is all one big myth!). Why don’t you have a seat someday and talk to guys like Levinson (too late for the late Schweikert) who actually understands instruments/music? You may gather more insight.

Until then, it is just another case of beating the deadhorse over n over about myths and non-myths.

@ditusa he checked out here:

gregjacob OP

99 posts

01-15-2024 at 02:13pm 

Wrapping up, thanks to everyone for your input!  When opening up topics like these, the hope is that many benefit from the answers.  I've garnered much over my time in this forum just by reading questions and answers I hadn't even posed. So, hopefully, this is good stuff for those trying to suss out their equipment.  Thank you everyone.  I will close my part in this discussion and continue to mull over possible tweaks as well.  Cheers.

So many come to mind but at todays prices used YG Carmel 2's are near $10k, imo very hard to beat at that price.

I could not disagree more.. 

@mofojo Big myths die hard. So this does not surprise me- I get pushback on it all the time. But it comes down to something very simple, which is can you find a designer who can say what parameters exactly will favor a certain genre?

I've been doing this 45 years and got an engineering degree early on. I know a lot of designers and none of them make any claims to this effect. Since I design amps and preamps I see things a bit differently,  thru the eyes of my test equipment. Once that signal is in the amp, the amp does not care what it is, it just amplifies it. I suspect the same thing for speakers- they have no taste, they just move as the amp tells them.

@veerossi,

Sadly, I have never heard any of the bigger Tannoy’s.  I only heard the inexpensive one with an 8 inch woofer.  I will have to hit another Audio Show to hear the Tannoy’s. I have heard the Klipsch and am hoping to purchase a new pair of Cornwall IV speakers this year.  I will use it in my secondary system that houses the JBLL100 Classic speakers I am using now in conjunction with a McIntosh MA6600 200wpc integrated amp.  I like to try different speakers in this system.  I never heard the PS Audio speakers as they are far too expensive and love my GE Triton Refs in my main system.  My living room is not that big and the Triton Refs with their slim profile allows me truly full range sound and still allows me to see the entire TV screen. 

JBL 4311.L36,L100

The OP seems to be AWOL!

Mike

I don't think you need to listen loud to enjoy rock.  A clean, dry, hard, loud sound that it seems some are advocating for may sound good initially, but your ears will hate it after some time.  Give me the bass, give me the texture, crunch, extended warm guitars and I am happy.  

Revel Salon 2

The reality I think, is that rock and roll goes hand in hand with loud. Anything can play loud, but so much music is compressed, as so many speakers. This is why I threw in that jazz piece as a demo for everyone to try. Playing Satch and Ozzy means nothing. BTW, my favorite Satch is his '95 recording, for sq. There are many more excellent tracks that can be used to demonstrate superior aspects of dynamic range, transient response, etc. Keeping it simple, listen to Your Momma Don't Dance, by L&M....a much better recording to evaluate what some of us are talking about here. Playing loud and playing clean, simultaneously, is at the heart of the matter, ime. My best, MrD

If you want to maximize the reproduction of rock and roll music through your audio system, then you’ll probably want to go with a higher powered SS amp, driving a pair of highly dynamic speakers. Just that simple. There’s a multitude of speaker/amp combos out there that can accomplish the goal. However, I can suggest one pair of speakers in particular, that are within your budget, that very well could become an end-game speaker for the long haul (they did for me), and the speaker is the phenomenal Revel Salon 2 speakers. Given enough power to drive them properly, the Salon 2 speakers are some of best rock-and-roll speakers I’ve ever heard. From top to bottom, the Revel Salon 2 speakers are still one of the most revealing and most dynamic speakers on the market today. The Revel Salon 2 speakers, IMHO, are also one of the absolute greatest values in high end audio.  The Revel Salon 2 speakers are astonishingly good.

JBL

They have something in every price point and dicker with your dealer, you can get a pair of 4367’s that will shake your windows.

Rock On!

Another vote for the Goldenear Triton reference.  Extended highs, natural mid, and extended bass response.  Certainly  not in the ultra high end, but sure does work for me.  Aerosmith to Zep, all sounds great.

I think classical and rock can show how limited in dynamics at lot of speakers are as they both demand big swings in instant volume. 

@deep_333 

If I only listened to a few audiophile discs, (I don't own records) there would be no way for me to know how all genres of music sound on a given speaker. I have also been exposed to plenty of live music in my life, and my Father was a violinist.

I believe that the difference between us is that I know that duplicating the realism of live music of any type is not fully possible on any system. The key to a good system I think is one that is able to reproduce a well balanced illusion, scaled to the room in which it is being played.

@stereo5 Have you ever compared your Triton Reference’s to Tannoy Turnberry’s, Klipsch, or PS Audio’s speakers?  I also listen to mostly rock and have the Turnberry’s which are great, but I’ve always wondered how those Triton’s sound?

That is a strange opinion. I have had quite a few speakers, large and small that were very satisfying with every type of music. I don’t know what your yardstick is...a fraternity beer blast?

@roxy54

"Very satisfying" eh?...My yardstick is that I’ve been proficient in playing a couple of instruments for 40+ years (violin, piano...can also slam with a guitar if i have to) and may have a better idea about how artists think, how things sound in real life, etc.

I have owned different kinds of "high end" speakers and know that different kinds of speakers sound better or worse at any price bracket for specific genres of music.

What’s your yardstick? Let me take a wild guess (kinda like how you did about the frat house beer blast n all).

a) 4 to 5 "audiophile" records on repeat all year with emphasis on "female vocals" for listening to your gear? lol (That’s about the extent of your playlist?). If a great artist has a suboptimal (non audiophile) recording, you wouldn’t play it?

b) Dealer/sales dude (watching out for his daily green) for some brand that I dissed for hard rock, etc?

a, b, or both?

@stereo5 

No problem buddy, we all make them.

@ roxy54,

You are correct about the Volti speakers.  I was wrong, I was thinking of another brand.

@deep_333 

"There is no such thing as truly excellent crap that worked brilliantly for any kind of music."

That is a strange opinion. I have had quite a few speakers, large and small that were very satisfying with every type of music. I don't know what your yardstick is...a fraternity beer blast?

Designers of course try and design the best speaker they can to serve their Co’s ethos and their brand’s demographic, but I’m not sure all well-designed speakers work equally well for all genres. I can’t imagine using Magnepans or Quad’s for rock.. or techno.. or dubstep, etc. I love Maggie’s.. have owned them.. but those panels will last you about a month under heavy use with a high current amp until the panels start to separate and need to be serviced. Mine typically lasted about 2-3yrs before they needed service (with moderate listening on all types of music).

I don’t listen to rock anymore.. nothing goes to 11 here now.. but have returned to cone speakers for various other reasons. Some speakers just don’t work well for certain types of music. MBL’s.. amazing for orchestral.. but not for rock (..unless you are the type of concert goer that wants to stand at the rear gates.. then maybe via MBL you will get the most nuanced and delicate rock you’ve ever heard at home).

I recommended horn speakers further up the thread.. because that’s what we are listening to at a rock concert.. horn loaded systems (we obviously don’t mind the effects of the horn, here), and they might pair well with the gear in original poster's system. The contrary would be for a ’live at...’ type of recording.. if you want to accurately reproduce that live concert.. without listening to ’horns playing horns’ ..where you get into some sort of ’audiophile’s hell’ recursive horn paradox.. then maybe ATC or the GR Researches recommended early on in the thread.. I’d guess they’d be good.. but my feeling is many low-sensitivity ’audiophile’ boutique speakers will not do rock the way the actual recording artists would ever want to listen to it.

I asked this same question 4 years ago for a match with my McIntosh MA8900. I went with the JBL L100 Classics and have been very happy with them. I originally thought of adding subs to my system, but honestly, unless you want thumping fake bass, you won't need them and I decided against. The Bass was enhanced just a bit with the EQ on the 8900 and I am very pleased with the sound. The L100's really sing the louder you work them and I have been very pleased with the combination.

Play " Housed From Edward " from Trio Jeepy. Not rock. But crank this, and see what your system brings to the table. Being there are fan boys of all types, and those stating mine is bigger than yours..... I Love my Lascalas ! BTW, interesting that the op has not posted in 5 days.

I think you might have missed the mark. Truly good or excellent speakers will sound good with any type of music. This of course assumes that the system can provide the needed power, and finesse. Brands that can do this: Dynaudio, Magico, Wilson, Magnepan, Raidho, MBL..

It sure ain’t so...Let us try and explore that a bit

Start here....Play this at about to 90+ to 95 db avg (let the peaks fall where they may) on the MBL, Magnepan, Dyn crapaudio, Harbeth, etc, for starters. You will want to toss all of them in the trash can.

Joe Satriani - Devil Slide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaoQUgwh6kY

Ozzy Osbourne - Desire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-bgU8GzhiE

If you play such tracks on a Schweikert 55, Borresen, JTR, some of the JBL synthesis, some of the higher end PA speakers, etc, you may now feel like hanging on to that speaker...

But, if a dude’s listening to Diana Krappa Krall wailing away at 60db...any wet noodle speaker will work just fine...

When I get home, i will post many, many more tracks that are designed to just expose/kill all the wet noodle speakers out there and determine if your speakers can stand the acid tests or not for certain types of music...might help rehabilitate y’all from the Diana Krapparall @ 60db (playin it safe all day long)...

There is no such thing as truly excellent crap that worked brilliantly for any kind of music.