Rap music on high-end speakers

If your Levinson amp has over or 100 WPC,I would suggest the B&Ws 801 series 3,a bit easier to drive than the series 2.Has very good and tight bass and nice silky mids and highs,if you fell that the amp cant drive these speakers i would definitly suggest the B&W 802 series 3.Why I have a pair and they do the job very well,I was using Conrad Johnson MF-200 and Premier 3 pre,but got an offer on the preamp that I couldnt refuse.You might want to try out the MARTIN LOGAN speakers,I had the SEQUELS and they sounded great with rap and R&B,soul music.The Martin Logans can handle it too.Also you can check out the B&W NATILUS speakers too.More looot but definitly worth a listen.Try listening to those speakers and decide.Its nice to know that you like tubes in the pre and S/S power,it's a nice combination.Good luck on your search.

My Dunlavy V's with Classe electronics does great job on hip-hop music or ANY kind of music. I listened to all kinds of music. Classical or Jazz one session, Electronica or rock on other and always hip-hop when I want to let loose. Rap music HAS high fidelity elements. Music! All music has high fidelity elements-as lon as there is sytem that reproduces faithfully. Be it violin, vocal, cymbals or electronic music. Rap music has a bad RAP from typical jazz/classic/old classic rock audiophiles. Wake and smell coffee! Why do you think the top ten songs are mostly populated with Rap Artists. RAP IS HERE TO STAY. I always listened to rap/electronica in my car equipped with Pioneer premier front end and PPI amps, generating very high-endish sound.( No boom to speak of). When the mood strikes, Iistened to, for example, any good Mapleshade CDs. Tru, Like you said a great system will make any music sound the way it was meant to be: MUSICAL

Sean, your post summarizes many excellent points including the need to be honest in order to have a discussion.

It also reminds me of a point I wanted to make. Many people out there have minimal exposure to some genres of music be it upbringing (culture), location (city or farm) or the all important resource- interaction with friends who are music lovers. If you rely on exposure to music from the popular media (or hifi shops) you are likely to have opinions like Sean stated:

"As to why people would have the ideas that they do about "rap", "hip-hop", etc..., take a look around. Most of the time that you hear this music or see the participants, the sound is HORRIBLE while the listeners and creators try to portray themselves as being "ghetto gangsters"."

Sean you need to look around a bit more.

It may be true that lots of rap is listened to on "Big woofers in untuned boxes and Piezo tweeters." So is a lot of classic rock. This may represent exactly what the listener wants out of the music or what they can afford to spend.

I am lucky to be involved with a group of people across the US who post music to a private server along with a brief description of the album. Every week I get an email from the system administrator listing the new music posted that week. This is what the internet is all about! It has increased my exposure to rare recordings, different styles of music new and old. A great example of a new way to get exposed to music without listening to commercial radio or music television. There are probably a bunch of Audiogoners who do this too.

MP3 isn't hifi but the recordings I enjoy are eventually purchased in the CD or vinyl formats and enjoyed on that other thing I spend too much time sitting in front of.

audiogon did not print my last reply, so you know what they say, if you dont have anything nice to say . anyway i like the old sugar hill gang, whoever did planet rock. and someother older rap, but i would not play it on a high end system. i have a system in my theater with a jbl pro 4719 sub with a krell strapped down . i am using jbl pro horns with micrex tubes on top. that would be good for your rap. i dont know why you would listen to any of that newer trash . sugar hill gang had something to say. what do rappers have to say today. nothing i want to hear. anyway it is a free country, good luck in your quest. by the way sean ; well put.

Karl, most older "classic rock" ( Beatles, Stones, Who, etc ) was done in a time period when the majority of speakers were sealed. For instance, look at AR, KLH, Advent, Jensen, etc... These were all major forces in the industry back then. As such, box tuning is FAR less critical. It is almost hard to make a sealed and stuffed box sound "boomy". Vented / augmented boxes were really just making headway into the mainstream back then. With the advent of Thiel / Smalle parameters, they took off rather rapidly. None the less, companies were not TRYING to produce high Q designs that created huge undamped bass peaks or treble response that made your ears bleed at thirty paces. Yet, there is a HUGE market that WANTS that type of "sound" today and it is primarily for the hip-hop / rap crowd. With that in mind, poor designs of any type are JUNK, regardless of what type of music you're listening to.

Take into account that i am also talking about the AVERAGE "fan" of a specific genre of music. After all, when you think of a specific group of people or products, you typically look at what the "average" represents or how it is viewed by the masses. While it is true that there are extremes or fringe elements to EVERY group, those ARE the extremes and are less likely to be recognized or accounted for. That puts "audiophile hip-hoppers" in the minority and basically out of the picture. The "average" hip-hopper does not seek out "audiophile" grade equipment or sonic characteristics. If they did, "rap" and "hip hop" would NOT have the image that they do. Instead, the "average" fan strives for maximum "thud", poor tonal balance, sizzling high end, etc... Someone that is a rap / hip hop fan that does not go that route is ATYPICAL and therefore not included in the generalized comments that i made.

For the record, i live next to a village that had the lowest annual income per person in the United States. I get to see the REAL "ghetto gangsters", "rappers" and "hip-hoppers" EVERY single day as i drive to work. I did not grow up on a farm or live with my head stuck in a hole in the ground. The "exciting" things that are glorified in those "songs" are a REAL way of life for some of these "Thugz for Life". Peddling dope on street corners, threatening neighbors with death if they call the police, shooting some "ho" that smoked your last rock or drank your last "40" are REAL things there. As such, i can't condone that type of behaviour and don't want to glorify such things. Nor will i support it financially.

If you think my views are tainted by living near the above situation, think again. I live in the suburbs. I can drive 20 minutes into Chicago or 20 minutes out to cornfields. I would consider that a pretty "well rounded" perspective of both "city" and "country" living.

To each their own.... Sean
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