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Speakers for loud listening. really loud...

Hi, I own a nice little McIntosh/Totem system and I absolutely love the sound for most music, especially piano and cello stuff.

As much as I love classical music, I also listen to some heavy rock/metal music. My McIntosh MC7300 amp can output plenty of power, but according to Totem's website, my Totem Hawk loudspeakers can only handle about 120W of power. These speakers are beautiful both aesthetically and sonically, but they have pretty low sensitivity (86dB).

Whenever I want to listen to heavy music such as Tool, Incubus, Metalica, etc, I keep on reminding myself to watch the power amp's watt meter to make sure it doesn't go over 150W, although I sometimes let it go over 200W for a short time. Even at that level, the sound isn't satisfyingly loud enough for me.

I love the Totem sound, and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a good rock/metal speakers. The price range should be below $2500 used and I'd like them to have a good power handling. Oh and the speakers don't necessarily need to be produced by Totem. One last thing, my listening room's pretty small, if not tiny (10 x 13ish).

Thanks,
spacekadet
sean
6,229 posts
 
If you want to play loud with authorityand keep it clean with speakers of that efficiency level, you would need 1000+ wpc and speakers that could sustain that type of heat dissipation. You obviously need speakers with a much higher sensitivity if you're going to accomplish your goals without buying a new amp. I won't go into specifics here, but "rocking" and "chilling" typically work best on different systems. Then again, my idea of "rocking" is probably MUCH different from that of most folks, so you might be able to combine those traits and be happy. I couldn't and that's why i have several different systems. Sean
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sedona
144 posts
 
Probably too many to list, but here's a few in no order:
Aerial Acoustics 7B, a pair just sold on the Gon for less than your target price. Von Schweikert Vr4 Gen III's, I own Source Technology 8.2DX and these puppies can handle up to 350 watts and they have excellent bass.
I'm sure you'll get quite a few recomendations.
Best of Luck
bigjoe's avatar
bigjoe
680 posts
 
i always like speakers from the klipsch heritage line for extremely loud rock music.

the cornwall # 1 is a good speaker for what your LOUD listening tastes are, i ran mine with a mc300 & a pair of mc300s in mono & in both cases they performed great.

the soundstage out of the cornwall isnt nowhere as good as your totems but at blasting levels is soundstage really important.

i run mcintosh xrt22 speakers for the most part especially when i want great sounding music but when i want to really blast it out i use my klipschorns.

for extremely loud, get the police called, make your neighbors hate you, rattle the house kinda loud music cornwalls are a decent choice, especially with mcintosh amps.

mike.
gaudio_eek
312 posts
 
PMC (Professional Monitor Company).
cmk
397 posts
 
Cabasse spks are generally highly efficient, >92db/w and can handle huge amounts of power. I mean really huge, most of them can handle >500w.

Tonally they are accurate, like the Totems, but I think they are faster.
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