Get you an OHM I made in the 80's. That speaker is made for rock music. Get you a used one in decent shape. Then upgrade the drivers from OHM. I upgraded mine and they sound like a whole new speaker. Then I had the upgrade bug and purchased a WELL reviewed speaker FOR rock music. After switching them back and forth over several months. I sold the new pair I got and have never looked back. Bear in mind I bought a $2500 speaker without listening to it. I have heard speakers in the $5000 plus catagory and they are better. I have heard many speakers in the 2-3k range in the last ten years but none sounds as good as my OHMs. They're hear to stay. One other thing. You need a very powerful amp to take control and drive these speakers. These OHM Is are like a race car. They drive best when driven hard. |
EDIT: Okay and seriously, it is possible drop the EQ Idea, and simply go with Headphones all together, you may be able to achieve resonable results with most of the 80's recordings... Only ones that have been resonably remastered that I know of is OZZY stuff, because he still has the money, most of the other bands have dissapered off the face of the earth from the Hair band Era, Rush and Aerosmith do have some pretty good recordings, but mostly on Vinyl and 180 gram type at that.
What was the deal with the word "White" in the 80's bands? White snake, white lion, Great White? Well whatever, but please give me the title of one of these that will not sound like a recording made from a chalkboard... even early van halen stuff will have a hard time sounding great, regardless if this taste in music is good or not, I am still in the camp most of this music from that era will need heavy equalization in general unless you are gonna fork out for some pretty pricey speaks, or at least play it all back on Vinyl vs. Cd and hope for the best. but I could be wrong, I have not heard one album from then sound much past thin and lifeless, one of the worst recordings of all time even thought the music is not bad is Motley Crue's first, I can't even remember the name of it, but it was unlistenable at the time. Anyway don't waste much time with the exact speaker that will work, Get an EQ and just fix these recordings as much as possible, unless somebody did some serious re-master , re-issues lately then I take it all back. |
What was the deal with the word "White" in the 80's bands? White snake, white lion, Great White? Well whatever, but please give me the title of one of these that will not sound like a recording made from a chalkboard... even early van halen stuff will have a hard time sounding great, regardless if this taste in music is good or not, I am still in the camp most of this music from that era will need heavy equalization in general unless you are gonna fork out for some pretty pricey speaks, or at least play it all back on Vinyl vs. Cd and hope for the best. but I could be wrong, I have not heard one album from then sound much past thin and lifeless, one of the worst recordings of all time even thought the music is not bad is Motley Crue's first, I can't even remember the name of it, but it was unlistenable at the time. Anyway don't waste much time with the exact speaker that will work, Get an EQ and just fix these recordings as much as possible, unless somebody did some serious re-master , re-issues lately then I take it all back. |
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Vandersteens and tube amps! |
I think its better listening to 80's music in vinyl or cassette tape than in CD format. 80's music CDs more often sound bad because of bad mastering from analogue format to digital format.IMHO, the source is the heart of the problem and not the speakers. |
I just happen to dislike that 80s canned, artificial reverberant sound field, especially with drums. Just awful and pompous at the same time. Same thing for so much of the decade's music which was corportate arena anthem crap. You could almost hear the cigar chomping fat guys saying, "Yeah, that's the sound! That'll hook those kids! Hey, you! Bass player! Can't you whip your head back and forth faster?!?" Sorry, but I think MTV had destroyed music by 1985, which is why Nirvana and Pearl Jam sounded so refreshing. (Funny how we would call heroin rock refreshing. But it sure sounded that way and the instruments again sounded human.) The 80s songs came prepackaged with fast edit, brain numbing videos, too! Yay!!!! (Souxie and the Banshees did have a great one about 1980 but soon after videos became pure unadulterated crap.)
However, if you're talking about stuff from very early 80s (new wave, funk, rap, etc.) then, yeah. That's great driving-in-your car music. I do have two full "new wave/funk" collections on CD.
I also disliked what rock/pop production did to band's sounds in the 70s. Just killed the drums and made most of 'em sound like dried marshmallows. For decent drum sound check out 1966's Syndicate of Sound's "Little Girl" on your system in the dark. You'd swear that damn drum set was right in the room with you - you'd swear you could hear the hardwear flexing and the cymbal stand wobbling. |
Angela
I am not sure where you are located,I am in Toronto,Canada and we got a fairly new FM station playing strictly 80's.It is at 92.5FM and called JACK 92.5.Guess where I am tuned in 24/7!!!!at work or at home.
Keep smiling
George |
Tomryan,
Geez!
I happen to love 80's rock and pop!
I have tons of it in my collection.
Guess my tastes and yours are totally different!
See ya.
Angela |
The 10't are one of my favorites too. They go for around $ 2500.00 and up! |
80s rock? What an awful decade for that type of music. What are we talking about - Def Leopard, Twisted Sister, Whitesnake, Bryan Adams? Geez! |
Tough choice...do you want it to sound like a concert? If so, Cerwin Vega! If you want to hear what they put down on the recording then you should get Vandersteens. Both are completely different, but fun, speakers.
Cheers! |
vandersteen 2's or 3's...... |
I will second the 10T's.This is what I listen to mostly anyways.Everything 80's is my cup of tea,and my Aerial's do a wonderful job,they are however way above the price that was mentioned above.
Best
George |
Aerials will tame the painful edginess of big-hair rock. I had 10Ts for a few years. I would avoid ruthlessly-revealing tweeters & midranges for this music. |
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a/d/s L-810s are one of the best vintage speakers for rock. |
Guaranteed with most of the stuff no subs, if you have a Thin problem, especially with Hair bands make sure you get a receiver/Intergrated with tone controls, or a seperate Equalizer and fix how bad most of those recordings are.. I listen to primarily Hard rock of the more modern sense and the CD's are pretty good from about 99' on up, but once in a while are still Dry and thinner, so gotta equalize something, trust me you will be far happier having the control of frequency bands with any speaker as you are looking to go resonably cheap, especially in the type of thing you are looking to pull off. |
I've sen stratus silver's for $6-700.
OK, if that's too much, the old classics - JBL L100's will completely fill the bill - excellent all around speaker with killer bass. |
Something fat in the bass. Many 80s discs seem to be anemic in the bass - I'm thinking of Blondie, Cheap Trick, Poison in particular; I think htere are others, but I can't remember specifics. I heard they were engineered to sound their best on a particular type of speaker that was popular among college kids, but can't remember which it was - ,aybe Ohms? |
The B&W DM603 are a small floor speaker that for the price really takes off as the volume goes up. The S2 version especially. |
The original Advent or Large Advents. Both classics. |
Cerwin Vega, Klipsch (if ya like horns) or a great old AR-9 accoustic Research from Teledyne, those will rock if ya got power! |
PSB Stratis are not what i would call "inexpensive", not for me anyways. |
get a pair of klipsch cornwalls & a qsc pro amp & your friend will blow the house down.
cornwalls are around $600 used & a qsc 450 wpc amp is $450,throw in a mcintosh c-26 preamp for $300 & a $99 cdp & i'll bet the cops come in less than 15 minutes.
mike. |
PSB Stratus Gold or Silver ("i" if available). |
If you can find a pair of cerwin vega d5 speakers (under $200) they should do the trick.
DO NOT buy the newer model cerwin vegas though, they sound awfull.
I used to have the D5s when i was a teen and was quite happy with them and never had any complaints other then playing the music too loud, but maybe they sounded good because of the booze,lol. |
