What are the best speakers for 80's hard rock?

Horns are designed to project out to listeners (or simply add efficiency if close listening is preferred), and older ones didn't have phase plugs for dispersion and beaming avoidance issues. My old Altec A7s sounded best when given some distance (That horn was a mid/high thing). In an average size room your ears will distort before most well designed speakers do, and in a large room (like the 360 seat venue where I often mix shows) I have mega watt clean P.A. gear to get any musical point across (18" powered pro woofers). If I’m listening to heavy classical or anything I feel needs to be dynamic in my normal room and just crank it, my subs (8" and 10" RELs) might need to be turned down a little to keep from overwhelming the room with bass, and all else is plentiful…my room is medium-large I think…wallop…great term…wallop...

I've been playing guitar for over 50 years and I can and do play a classical guitar (nylon strings), steel string acoustics, and electric guitar. In all styles…master of none really…but still…ever hear Bill Frisell?  The comparison of speakers to sports cars is inane to anybody who listens to great audio designs (or owns sport cars)…I've heard kick ass electric stuff on LS3/5As driven by vintage tube amps and it was sublime…no low bass but when you get everything else right it somehow is still right, and classical on my old biamped Altec A7s was also sublime…or mondo lime…or some citrus based thing…anyway I still side with the All Well Designed Speakers Play All Music crowd, only limited by overall loudness (the speakers, not the crowd), and loudness is relative anyway.

I'm not sure what tonal characteristics are important to a "die hard rock fan." Volume? Sensing the presence of groupies? Being able to note the general state of mind of the road crew? What is the ability of speakers to "jam?" Is that when the speakers improvise for extended periods on their own? Disconcerting...I started playing live and loud in 1966 or so…opened for Zep during an early tour, saw Hendrix a few times (including from an orchestra pit about 10 feet from Jimi) and I still love to get my live electric guitar mojo going usually a little too loudly. That said, live large shows often aren't mixed well, and loud small shows (like at a nearby successful smallish venue) often aren't either, so if that's the paradigm it's a strange one. I try for accuracy in my hifi rig, which means what goes in actually comes out the same…warts and all…and hey…for me it's ALL Rock and Roll when that happens. Maybe the reproduction of musical dynamics is the thing one wants the home rig to get right, although often my criticism of newer (and a lot of older) rock stuff is that it's too damn monodynamic. 

I get that as nobody wants speakers that "shine only with good recordings." You need speakers that cover up the faults in bad recordings making the recordings sound better, and also allow great recordings to sound great…perhaps a "shitty recording" filter built into your Magicos to allow you to indulge in badly recorded music, and the ability to switch the filter off for the good stuff…yeah…that's it! You should be able to listen to as much crappy stuff as you want without the pesky accuracy provided by great sound reproduction. Digital filters could do this with a Badly Recorded music setting…just remember to turn it off when you want to hear the good stuff as who knows what would happen if the Bad setting was left on….

I've ranted about this a few times...Atmosphere is 100% correct...noting a preferred music type for speaker or system selection is silly, unless some loudness level is required for frequent drunk dancing. Mahler or Medeski Martin and Wood are as, or more, dynamic than "80s rock" which is (was?) generally very compressed. I remember when I bought some Cerwin Vegas from some angry divorced chick who's ex was out of town back in the day...but I digress...I can say that gear made for live sound has similar goals regarding clean headroom, but really can't be compared to well designed home hifi gear which serves a different purpose altogether. Just add a decent sub for drunk dancing.

"Ralph of Atmasphere" sounds medieval.

My speaker system sounds great for all eras of hard Rock & Roll, except a few specific things from late June of 1979…otherwise atmasphere is correct as usual, although some may find analog recordings of Liberian Death Mumblecore using a 1952 Martin Tiple somewhat challenging for drivers using alnico magnets. Trust me.