Trying to find an amp that matches my tastes (aka death metal)

Being a bit of a metalhead myself, though not as deep as you, I think you will find it has more to do with source than equipment. Most metal is very compressed and very harsh. Just the nature of the beast. Might be worthwhile to source a good eq, or perhaps a good integrated that has eq/tone and see if you can come up with a setting just for the thrash. One of the best recorded "metal" albums IMO is either Megadeth’s Rust in Peace, or Metallica’s Master of Puppets. Note these are old recordings and were done right for their time. I haven’t heard a recent metal album that I would say "sounds good" overall. Slip Knot is a bit of an exception here, but still not great. Difficult music to get right. It is too bad really, there are some seriously excellent musicians not getting their product out and represented well. Try the above, Rust in Piece specifically, and go from there.

Don't worry about what music you play. Electronics have no way of knowing the difference- what makes an amplifier good for classical music makes it good for metal too.

The Prima Luna >>> Zu Audio combination is a very good one.  The Zu's are pretty efficient and they are a rock oriented speaker and the PL's 35 to 40 watts should be enough.

Hopefully you are using KT88s or 6550s as your tube set.  EL34s will probably not have enough umph for you.

I am thinking that placing an equalizer in the mix would work out best for you, as you could isolate the frequency band you wish to augment.

This one from Schiit looks interesting.  Cost is ok, as well.  I used a Behringer for years in an old set-up.

https://www.schiit.com/products/loki?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIypLQyN2z5gIVJYFaBR0EwQmTEAYYBiABEgI7uvD_BwE

These days I go as hard as Metallica S&M.

Good luck.


Rich 

If interested in a equalizer, try the Schiit Loki. 

kcdd
Trying to find an amp that matches my tastes

I don’t think the 20w watt Aegir (very nice) is going to be enough for you.
I suggest you get the Omen’s speaker xover split so you have tweeter terminals and bass terminals. And horizontal bi-amp them.
http://www.av2day.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/biamp1.jpg

Using the 20w class-A Schiit Aegir on the tweeters, and the 100w Schiit Vidar on the bass, and use a $39 Schiit Sys passive on the input of the louder of the amps so you can equalize the gains perfectly.
And use a pre still for the master volume control

Cheers George

Thanks for the recommendations. The EQ is a great suggestion that I hadn’t really thought off. Time to buy one and see!

i do tend to use mid era slayer to evaluate. The production on south of heaven is rich as hell.

"I do tend to use mid era slayer to evaluate. The production on south of heaven is rich as hell."

Ah yes, forgot about that one! Some good old Cowboys in Hell is fun too!

And I would tend to agree with the above regarding equipment. You definitely need fast speakers that can handle the "tick" of current blast beat kick drums, along with the heavy mids of detuned guitars. Current metal is just slamming. In fact, I try to avoid a "box of chocolate" mixes when I put together various playlists. Invariably the metal stuff (Def Tones, In This Moment and a few others that are on the list) pop up at a nominal volume set for other styles and just blast overall. Good ol' metal. I usually listen to my metal stuff very specifically to avoid this. Best thing to do is walk into your local Hi-Fi store with South as Heaven que'd up and have fun. Then watch the sales person wince with your music selection. Lucky for me, my local guy is a closet metalhead and we get to have fun with some of the "big stuff". To date, McIntosh for whatever reason, seems to handle metal very well through a variety of speakers.

Get a set of powered dj speakers and go nuts.  Heavy is a pretty scooped sound . 2 ways will work fine. If you did go separates youll want minumum 75 watts tube or 150 watts chan solid state. . Why i say dj stuff is some people arent able to hear their speakers are distorting at all . I have a buddy the melts everything due to this fact . Death metal has enough rawness to it that its almost indistinguishable the destruction happening . A big set of jbl powered dj speakers will live through almost anything you throw at them.   The new ones control with an app. You should be able to destroy whats left of your ears in short order. Otherwise just go to your local electronics store on boxing day and buy some pioneer and klipsh expendable  stuff and let er rip . Ok in listen to heavy stuff sometimes aswell but not the stuff that sounds like cookie monster on crack . 

I’d personally look into the Schiit Vidar (or 2 run as monoblocks) and a Freya + with your Zu’s. The Schiit Aegir puts out 20 wpc, but 80 wpc when run as monoblocks. Keeping with Schiit gear will add synergy, and Zu spkrs seem perfect for that combo. Those or Tekton spkrs would work perfectly for what it sounds you’re searching for. Tekton Pendragons have extremely tight and focused low end. I listen to all types of music, but grew up on and love punk rock and metal too. A good EQ such as the Schiit Loki would come in handy too. EQ’ing that type of music can’t hurt. No need to be a purist, IMO at least. A little EQ never hurt anyone, and if you can enhance your listening pleasure with the use of one, more power to ya! Good luck, buddy!

EQ is a great way to destroy sound quality. Tube buffer, etc. Kiss definition goodbye. You have been warned. 

For cleanest path I recommend going Integrated DAC direct to amp(s).  I use such a setup lots and it is stunning. 

I had a pair of Anthony Gallos Ref 3.1’s. When hooked up to both a class D W4S ST-500mkii and Gallo SA amp (dual amping dual voice coiled sealed 10" woofers), metal was amazing. Low volume pant leg movement from bass drum and bass guitar plucks were physical felt. Sharp imaging and drum/bass definition came from Dirac Live from the PC. Exodus sounded better in my home than at the Nokia show in L.A! So much cleaner with attack and accuracy - amazing. South of Heaven and Justice for All faster and tighter than ever before. Electric bass lines were so much easier to discern and follow popping hard at moderate volumes.

Eventually I moved on from the solid state/class D rock system and moved to a Line Magnetic 48W SET tube integrated with Tekton Double Impacts. Interesting find was how real the snare drum and cymbals became after cleaning up, re-clocking and galvanic isolating the usb signal feeding the dac. The drum kit definitely pops in metal as the only acoustic instrument. The system now plays metal no problem, 90% as good in the bass drum range and more realistic everywhere else, including all other genres of music (except rap). I laugh when I switch from Sara Vaughn to Exodus, that LM508 is insane.

Long story short, for metal, feed lots of power to full range towers with large quality woofers. Use the best calibration you can, (mine exits the pc digitally corrected) and feed a squeaky clean, clocked signal to a good dac. Watch out for cabinet resonances from the bass and get some after market footers to retain mid and high driver accuracy.

Given your set up, bass will sound better with more power, but your speakers are not the deepest reaching either. If you want to feel like your at the show, you need subs or well powered large woofers in your mains to get well defined bass down to 20Hz

I don’t know if your PL Prologue Classic accepts the KT150, but I put these in my PL Dialogue HP and was blown away by the significant increase in slam, power, detail, presence, and soundstage.   YMMV, but I found this to be a great upgrade.

Death metal, you say? So no SET then? 

I love all Metal types, check out the new Bell Witch album!
the recording is done really good and feel you will appreciate it.
Burzum Filosofem is a great recording out of a good setup as the distorted guitars sound super chilling.


As for setups Id go with anything that has some good power involved and not speakers that are on the analytical side as it will bring out too many flaws in the recordings. Dynaudio contour speakers are as transparent as Id go that still can remain neutrality. Parasound amps are pretty good for metal in my experience especially the Hint6 integrated.

Id stick with solid state if you are trying to stay away from warmth. I have a First watt J2 and that paired with the Zu DW is awesome!( also have the zu DW's as a 2nd setup)

Non of the gear in your system has a way of knowing what music you are playing, only you know !

Given that if you go for the warm side of neutral then you will be robbing some of the feeling of Death Metal, it will sound rather boring, exactly opposite of what this type of music should be!. Conversely if your system is on the bright side of neutural then your music will tend to screech at you when no screech was intended and that will bring with it fatigue (yes you can have fatigue even with death metal).

With this type of music I think its even more important to have a very neutral sounding system specially at higher volumes (which I presume is what you are listing at most of the time)

I have nothing against tone control or equalizers provided they are properly designed. such units of course exist but are very costly and you probably have to look into Pro Audio to find a decent one.

But then the issue may become you spending more time adjusting things than actually listening to the music.

IMO it’s better to have a very flat system and just listen to the way the engineer has mixed the tracks. If you don’t like the way a particular album sounds you may listen to it less. Unfortunately you may find a lot of recordings very compressed, but that’s the nature of this type of music.

Hey KCDD, 
I am not familiar with the electronics you are have now with your Omens, but I am very familiar with where you’re coming from. I own many pairs of speakers and lot of Zu’s. And I listen to a lot of metal. My system changes frequently but about half the time, I find that most of my metal music is unlistenable. Most of it is just really poorly recorded and some gear just really showcases that. 

If I were you, my next step would be to try the Schiit gear with the Omens. The Aegir was compared to the First Watt SIT3 in a Stereophile review and he called the Aegir about 80% of the SIT3 (paraphrasing). I don’t think you need the mono blocks though cause the Omens can get insanely loud with little effort. I heard the Omen DW’s at the most recent CapFest and Zu played them so loud, the walls of the humongous conference room were shaking. And then I asked Sean, “about how many watts you think are going into the speakers now?” He said probably 30. My phone SPL meter said 120 dB and I was 15 feet away. And it was still really clean sounding. You don’t need a lot of power to get those going. 

I understand what a lot of the other responses you were getting, saying that the gear doesn’t care what genre you play. That’s true. But different genres vary in recording quality. And most metal is recorded piss poor unfortunately. So it does matter what you pair with your speakers. I say upgrade the gear but keep the speakers for now. I’ve gone through a lot of gear and it’s hard to beat the Omen DW’s for anywhere close to that money. 

And don’t know if you know this band, but In This Moment is great. But the recordings suck. I often use their music (especially the first 3 albums) to gauge where my system is going in terms of harshness. On certain systems, the high frequencies are really really harsh and the dynamic compression is really fatiguing. If you listen to their music on your current system and it doesn’t bother you, than that’s fine. But if it does, you might have to move towards a more forgiving direction for your system. 

I find that Death String Quartet music has some mojo...they can actually shred (their bows). Benjamin Britton’s quartets get at it, so to speak.