Rock? money down the drain?

CERTAINLY NOT! GREAT SYSTEM WILL REPRODUCE WHATEVER IS ON THAT rock CD FAITHFULLY.GREAT RECORDING GREAT, BAD RECORDING BAD.

If you ever try one sip of Chateau D'Yquem (at around $ 250 a bottle), you know you have just tasted something extraordinary. Of course a very good bottle can be found for $20, if you know what you are doing. That does not make the $250 bottle worth one cent less. It takes quite a bit more money to get to the best, but for those who can appreciate the difference, there is no doubt it is worth it. Same for a "Rock" system. Dekay, Cwlondon, Jeff, Tireguy, PLs1, and Nilthepill, all made good points here. Well done!! Nil is correct, my friend has two "state of the art" dream systems, and every type of music he plays sounds better on his system than anything else I have heard!

No unique system sounds the same regardless of the source. It doesn't matter whether it be rock, jazz, classical or whatever. A carefully matched system can be assembled to be more taylored to rock music. It's got to play loud, be quick & lots of dynamics. Simply put...it's got to Rock. To answer yourn question..."Will you notice the difference in a $10,000 & a $5000 rock system"? If the components are properly matched with the right synergy...you bet!!!

A good system is a good system is a good system and the bottom line is that it will do well with any type of music. There is however, strengths and weaknesses to each system, no matter how good or expensive, that will let it work best with specific types of music. Sean >

It's not easy to get good playback from a 90+ track rock recording. I think it's a lot easier putting together a good classical rig than one for rock that I listen to. Classical is more forgiving with system coloration than rock is, at least to my ears. My old B&Ws do very well with classical but they sound muddy with rock, the $4500 Ruark speakers I once auditioned sounded great with classical. With densely layered, heavily distorted guitar, the drivers sounded like they were make out of sponge. Same with the Aerius i's I listened to. As I walked away from those, the saleman told me, "They really open up when the treble is turned up." Whatever. Dismayed, the salesmen in both instances got a puzzled look on thier face and checked the connections. (All amps were SS.) And the same thing happened with the cdm7se. All were too muddy. I bought a pair of hales for my $5k system. I also went to the room with the Trans eights with a Wadia player and huge levinson monoblocks. I dunno, 35k+ total? The sound of that system with my rock cds melted my brain like no 5k or 10k sytem i've ever heard. But I definately agree that it depends on the specific quality of the recording. It's just that there's a lot of good rock out there that is very well recorded/produced.