Best speakers for classic rock

Vintage Cerwin Vega from the 1970s.  I don't think Rock and Roll will ever sound better than it did in our college dorm suites in the late 1970s.   Of course, you had to be there.

Jerry

Psb Stratus Gold Ti

Altec #19's

@carlsbad2 , good point about Cerwins. I had AT-15s in the late 80s and listened mostly to 70s music on them. I then went to more of a "hifi" speaker with a Mirage M460 in 1991 which sounded great and were better hauling around from place to place in my 20s and 30s. But while I loved the better overall sound (but w/ less bass) of the Mirages, I still missed the Cerwins very much. 

When I replaced the Mirages in 2021 after 30 years, I made a mistake buying Spatial M3 speakers. While they did and do sound great, they didn't do hard rock very well. Honestly part of that was an under-treated room but they still didn't rock as hard as I wanted. They sounded phenomenal with "regular" rock like Fleetwood Mac, etc. but has soon as you have heavy and screaming electric guitars, I think the low crossover tweeter couldn't deal with that very well.

FF to 6 months ago I now have what I consider the ultimate, hifi, 15" Cerwin-Vegas; Volti Rivals - and am thrilled with them. I know people will say this is thier last speaker but I'm very well convinced, the Rivals will be mine. As noted above I don't go through speakers very often anyway.

Again??? Spoken like a simpleton....over and over

What’s your real story here dude?

LOL I think Atmosphere is a very talented amplifier designer. I don't know about his taste in speakers, although I'm sure he'd argue high efficiency for his tube designs and maybe otherwise for his new class d adventures?

My free advice- I think we can agree that there are speakers that are forward and speakers that are laid back (generally) From there there are speakers that are forward and bright (highly detailed- think lots of room treatment careful cable selection etc.) I'd say a speaker that is forward but not bright- possible a synopsis of deep-33's thoughts about himself and atmosphere at a bar. 

I think Paradigm hit it out of the park with the Monitor SE speakers. I have the 3000f in my garage and they are just a really great sounding speaker and do really good things with rock music. Super punchy and clean clean clean. Basically got them free as I got 2 pairs for $375 total and sold 1 pair for the same. Otherwise they are way too good for the garage.

I’m surprised what that smallish amount of money can buy these days in the speaker realm. The big 8000f goes for well under your budget and I bet you might be really surprised.