great thread . . . I'm a prog freak from the 70's and most of my music collection (ie about 40%) is prog, with the balance being Jazz, Folks, Classical, Bluegrass, etc.
I had concluded recently I would set up my main rig for optimal acoustic/jazz/voice listening. My premise is most prog doesn't challenge a system because of the quality of recording that is typical, and previously mentioned. That said, I have found that prog needs deep bass, and must play loud - so that's been my primary prerequisite. In tuning my systems for prog listening I've found that the power amp and speakers are more important than the front end. My old Infinity Monitor IIa speakers that I drove with a Phase Linear 400 in the 70's were wonderful for Prog, and still are. I still have the Monitors, but am driving them with a Bedini 100.100. They are flat from 22Hz to 26kHz. My Totem Sttafs image wonderfully and I can listen to them all day for most music, but weren't as satisfying for Prog because of the absence of deep bass, until I added a Rel Storm III. I'm still afraid to play them really loud so I don't consider them optimal. I'm experimenting with other speaker/amp combinations to see if I can improve on the Monitor/Bedini system.
I had concluded recently I would set up my main rig for optimal acoustic/jazz/voice listening. My premise is most prog doesn't challenge a system because of the quality of recording that is typical, and previously mentioned. That said, I have found that prog needs deep bass, and must play loud - so that's been my primary prerequisite. In tuning my systems for prog listening I've found that the power amp and speakers are more important than the front end. My old Infinity Monitor IIa speakers that I drove with a Phase Linear 400 in the 70's were wonderful for Prog, and still are. I still have the Monitors, but am driving them with a Bedini 100.100. They are flat from 22Hz to 26kHz. My Totem Sttafs image wonderfully and I can listen to them all day for most music, but weren't as satisfying for Prog because of the absence of deep bass, until I added a Rel Storm III. I'm still afraid to play them really loud so I don't consider them optimal. I'm experimenting with other speaker/amp combinations to see if I can improve on the Monitor/Bedini system.