which excels at Rock and Roll

@robshaw - Hi Rob! I did not consider floor standers as I've been using stand-mounts for decades. Many of these thinner floorstanders have smaller footprints than my Martens, though, and they're certainly no shorter - the stands are 29 1/2 inches tall and the speakers are another 16 3/4 inch on top of that; they're designed for your ears to be at midrange speaker level, not the tweeter; it's weird, but it works! I'd think that sub would go great with them. I bought mine from Audio Vision in San Francisco; they carry an immense number of different speakers; check out their website.... 

The party-hardy, rock n roll speakers I remember are Cerwin-Vega

SL-15's.  No finesse, just pin you to the chair power.  Two pair just to be 

sure. 

(facepalm) Midrange took a backseat for rock??

Orchestral music covers most of the audio spectrum vs rock and roll, where the bass and treble is most important and midrange takes a back seat. 

Wrong speaker for orchestra, wrong speaker for rock, good luck.

The magnepans 2.7 are detailed as hell, but when I auditioned the 1.7 years ago, I thought they lacked dynamics. However, I would want to check out the 2.7 or above. Givem they are larger they can move more air.

While live Classical music at times may reach 100dB, it is for only brief lengths of time. Hard Rock bands on the other hand may average 100dB for an hour or longer set.

A speaker which does very well with Hard Rock music may not reproduce a String Quartet (or a harpsichord, one of my favorite sounding instruments) as well as does the QUAD ESL, and visa versa. Not exactly horses-for-courses, but not far off.

I don’t find the idea of different loudspeakers excelling at reproducing different kinds of music at all a radical notion, any more than the idea of different  automobiles excelling at different kinds of driving and roads.

I remember in the early-70’s the JBL L100 being sold as a "Rock ’n’ Roll" speaker. I hated the L100; it was extremely colored (in what J. Gordon Holt termed "Vowel colorations"). Vowel coloration is one thing you don’t want in ANY loudspeaker. At that time ESL’s were the only speakers I had heard which didn’t sound colored to me. ESL’s reproduced human voices and acoustic stringed instruments like no others. For those who listened primarily to vocal or acoustic string instrument music, an ESL was an excellent choice. If it was pipe organ music, not so much.

robshaw

Marten Oscar or Parker. Then, invite me over sometime.

Happy Listening!