What is the best HEAVY METAL speaker?

"... if a speaker is really good at classical music, it will be good with metal too."

I kinda disagree. IMHO classical is very a forgiving music genre (from a tonal perspective). I've heard classical well-reproduced on Quads and Maggies and Martin Logans. I've never heard metal well-reproduced on any of those speaker brands.

However, Fields of Nephilim is a good reference. Same with early Husker Du (or any Husker Du, really). Awful engineering. Awful production. But a great metal system will allow those "awful" qualities make sense and not detract from the musical genus.

Call me crazy, but I listen to mostly rock and heavy music on Martin Logan ascents. They sound great to me, and 95db is no problem. That's more then loud enough for me.

"... if a speaker is really good at classical music, it will be good with metal too."

I kinda disagree. IMHO classical is very a forgiving music genre (from a tonal perspective). I've heard classical well-reproduced on Quads and Maggies and Martin Logans. I've never heard metal well-reproduced on any of those speaker brands.

if a speaker system can do full tilt boggie warp 9 orchestral music without limits, it will easily rock your world with Heavy Metal. no worries at all. full on orchestral, or organ, or choral......is the most demanding of any genre. maybe 'big band' might be '1-a' as the second most demanding genre.

and getting full orchestral or big band 'right' was the driving force behind my system and room development. large scale 'rock' or 'heavy metal' performance came along with the ride.

but no one would consider Quads, or Maggies, or Martin Logans to be ideal for full on orchestral if you seek the full effect. the bottom octave or two is lacking, as is the heft and weight in the mid bass/lower mids. certainly those brands have excellent refinement and transparency to offer in the balance of trade-offs. so using those to make your point fails.

OTOH speaker systems that might work for Heavy Metal might not get the refinement to work at full on orchestral.

there is no place to hide with large scale orchestral music. I can tell you that. every small step forward brings you more with Classical as the information will reveal itself more and more. with Heavy Metal since it lacks the textures the improvements in the performance are not as evident (none the less refinement does help the Heavy Metal too).

my system is able to do full on Orchestral......and any Heavy Metal you can throw at it.

Holy smokes I bet that does handle anything you throw at it Mike!

I've had 3 friends go out and but ML after hearing mine, and they all listen to rock primarily. Then again, we aren't able to come close to considering your level of system or room so....

The highs are what seem harsh to me on other speakers. I always end up wanting to turn it down, when the opposite should be going on.

The only thing I've heard that I liked better was a set of aerial 20t's connected to all the new Ayre reference stuff. Again, on another level performance and price wise as well.

Big active ATC or PMC