To start with, comparing home audio speakers to those at a live rock concert is silly. Being calibrated to send sound to cover an entire open air stadium will mean they can only lack nuance, for all their might and power - this is a matter of physics, not opinion.
There are those who will say that a domestic speaker that plays the genre of rock better than others, plays to the strength of rock, which is loud, raw, and less discerning of the subtlety found in, say, classical recordings. It is likely this opinion comes from those who have never heard rock from a speaker which hits with depth, raw dynamics….and absolute nuance. There is as much nuance in the rudest rock as there is in any other genre or music, in the same way there is as much slam in Ravel or Stravinsky as there is in the grungiest of rock.
It is for this reason that I believe Ralph is absolutely correct, that pound for pound, speakers are agnostic, and a well-engineered speaker which addresses the common disadvantages of its typology, will play with every ounce of slam and subtle touch of the same recording, as much as a badly designed speaker will make any music sound awful.
Lesser speakers, all of which predominate the entire spectrum of speakers made, will favour their strengths. Good speakers get as close to agnostic as one will find. Most speakers, even by the most heralded manufacturers in the world, are compromised, lesser speakers. They give one the sound of hifi, while failing to bring high fidelity to sound.
The limited sample size refers to one’s access to have critically listened to the various and highest states of development for each typology of speaker made, not merely the range of music played. And without the benefit of that, we cannot wax on about the tiny sample size of what we have heard. It’s true what is said about not knowing what we do not know.
I suspect Ralph was being polite and kind.
In friendship - kevin
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