Best all around speakers

I agree that most speaker manufacturers tailor the speaker to a particular genre and I am not convinced that one set of characteristics are best suited to all types of music; even the volume level which can be achieved and the amount of distortion desired or unwanted comes into play. I find listening to a string quartet at low spl's completely satisfying. However, "sympathy for the devil" or "my generation" just seems to lose something when heard at 70 db. While auditioning a wide range of speakers for many months - basically everything I could find in a 100 mile radius - I came across the Monitor Audio GS60's. I did not find those speakers suitable for my needs. My impression of the speakers were that there was nothing wrong with them. They seemed accurate, sounded fine, added nothing to the sound, could produce acceptable spl's in a medium size room, etc. In short, there was nothing special about the speakers one way or the other - to my listening. I heard other speakers that worked well for vocals (classic spendors driven by low powered tubes for example - not particularly accurate but sounded very nice) rock (the largest paradigms driven by a bryston), classical (B&W 800 series, Genelec monitors and Dali floorstanders). The GS60's would be a serious option for me if I regularly listened to music of more than one genre. However, I do think that separate systems would give me more of what I would desire in that instance. There are really two broad schools of thought with speakers and sound in general. One is to build the most accurate system possible, the other is to treat the system as a musical instrument in and of itself. In my opinion an example of the first would be a digital source amplified by solid state system with low THD and with speakers designed for flat response across the audio spectrum. Of the second, an analog source with tube amplification (but specifically, tube amplification that is not designed for low distortion and that is almost meant to go into distortion) coupled with speakers that are not designed via laboratory measurements but more for an agreed upon sound. Both are viable options. The GS60's are worth a listen for speakers that can go across genres - if your pricing is more or less, Monitor Audio makes a higher end and less expensive models. Usually a company that goes in one direction or another tends to do so across their offerings.

Dcstep: You misconstrued the content of my post by inserting your own thoughts within that post and making connections that were not present but rather were distinguished. The statement regarding sympathy for the devil was a separate and independent statement unrelated to the statement regarding a system purposely chosen for distortion or how distortion affected sound. The statement regarding the song had to do with spl listening levels, described as one factor that would logically influence the choice of one set of speakers over another in that particular application. The sentence specifically referred to volume levels and did not mention live performance or distortion. You drew a link as to distortion and a live performance that was not in the text. I did not say that a distortion based system was in any way connected to reproducing the sound of a live performance of a stones concert - that was your statement, not mine, so I have no idea how distortion would recreate the performance. The second sentence you quoted, about distortion, followed a general statement as to two broad themes in building systems. I stand by both statements. A lot of folks purchase tube systems and speakers that clearly have distortion and clearly are meant to, whether the purchasers know it or even care about why the system has its particular sound. This is particularly true in the single tube amplifier designs. These purchasers want a tube sound. The tube sound primarily comes from the distortion characteristics of tubes. I agree that a better approach to tailoring the sound of a song is to make adjustments with software. I also agree that choosing a system with certain distortion characteristics is a crude way of achieving a particular result for a particular piece of music. The biggest drawback with the distortion based system is that everything pretty much sounds the same. I am not currently a tube enthusiast or an analog source enthusiast, but rather prefer digital sources and solid state because I believe that accuracy is best achieved with those technologies. That being said, the relative merits of a distortion based system, chosen for a certain overall sound, vs a system chosen for accuracy in sound reproduction, and the method of creating or reinterpreting music by using such a system, are separate issues from the broad classifications to which I referred. While these are arbitrary classifications, I believe the classifications are valid (note - a different idea than saying that that the goals and methods of either class are themselves valid -to which I here offer no judgment). Furthermore, I believe considering these classifications may be helpful to the OP in making a speaker selection.

There is no ambiguity in the text of the post to which you initially commented. I did not refer to live performances. All references to specific equipment and to systems in general were to home audio systems. The OP did not refer to live performances or live performance equipment. The examples of rock music that I referred to have been performed live and recorded in a studio. The plain language of the text was clear, did not reference other posts - other than that of the OP, and was not in reference to a discussion of other than home audio systems. Reading the post as a whole, in the context of the OP's question, there is no ambiguity in the sentence "There are really two broad schools of thought with speakers and sound in general" or any other part of the text. Hence, the text did not require distinguishing between live performance equipment and home audio equipment. A reasonable reading of the text would not leave one with a question as to whether I was referring to live performance equipment or a home audio system.

DcStep: Actually your phrase was "How can adding distortion on top of distortion replicate a performance say, "Sympathy for the Devil"?" You would have been better off in your most recent retort by not inserting the word "live" in "replicating a live performance" - at least then you could have argued that the use of the word "performance" was not intended to mean "live" as opposed to "studio" or "live""studio". As you have clarified, you were brought the term "live performance" into the discussion - while neither I nor the OP mentioned a live performance. It is your post that became fixated on live performances in any regard whether it is the live performance itself or replicating the live performance.

I simply see no reason to accept an obvious misconstruction of the text that I posted.