Best amps for rock and heavy metal

I have to agree with the others above about your speakers .
I have owned two pairs of JM Labs Electra speakers and could not get them to sound good with rock music . Many people explained the problem to be the small bass drivers .
I was using a 200w/ch SS midfi amp .
I have auditioned them with some highend SS amps such as Levinson , McIntosh , Plinius , Classe and MF . None helped .
If I was looking for a rock speaker , I would look for something with a big fast woofer for impact and a soft tweeter (non metalic) to help with the edgy highs . I would also introduce some tubes in the mix to help tame the highs . I chose a tubed CDP and it worked quite well .

It has been a couple of months now , have you had any success with your quest ?

Good luck.

I play a fair amount of metal and have a lot of friends who play in metal bands too. But my system is all tube. My speakers are fairly efficient (97 db) and they go to 20 Hz, so with 60 watts I can play any volume I want and shake the house at the same time.

At work (Atma-Sphere) we have a number of LPs that get used a bass references (see http://www.atma-sphere.com/awards/bya/index.html). One of them (Zoon, Fields of Nephalim) has enough bass to shut most systems down at the 'proper' volumes. Side 3, the side opposite the etched side of the LP has some particularly awesome material that makes you shiver :)

I find that the powerhouse transistor amps can't make the bass impact right. You really need tubes for that!

Best amp for rock I think Bryston 7 Bsst or Krell Ksa 250 any of those and your good especially for rock soild bass.

"I find that the powerhouse transistor amps can't make the bass impact right. You really need tubes for that!"

Not to get philosophical here, but this very much depends on your interpretation of what bass is. And that too, depends on a great many things, for one-your experiences.

To me bass does NOT roll away, sound muddy, or too rounded, and most tube amps I personally have heard do this to one degree or another. My interpretation of bass is having the ability to roll when it needs to roll (recording dependant) and SLAM! when it needs to slam. Which is why I find mixing a piece of tube with an agressive amp like Bryston, Krell, Pass etc. is simply a match made in heaven.

Jc51373,

A lot goes into how the recording sounds by virtue of microphone placement, attack, reverb and EQ.

See this article that explains some of it Equalization

You can boost the 80 to 100 Hz range for a more Britney Spears "Baby One More Time" sound. Some tube amps with a high output impedance transformer will do the same as an EQ boost at around 80 Hz (which is where most speakers have a high impedance point).

I agree with your summary though...if the artist/producer/engineer wanted the kick drum to slap then I prefer to hear it that way - rather than "Britney Spears it" myself.

One should repsect that often there is a trade off to help improve overall bass frequency audibility...either the kick drum will "slap" and the bass will be rounded or vice versa, for example Funk will often have a slap kick drum and a rounded groovy bass sound. These effects can also be controlled by type of miking and closeness of the mic,which controls tighness of the sound. On much heavy rock it is very hard to dinstinguish the bass from the drums as both are muddy or rounded to create a combined sound with heavy emphasis.