Speakers For Heavy Metal ? What Matters ?

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I think what makes a system "crankable" for metal in particular is the ability to play loud midrange without distortion. A lot of hard rock and metal have screaming guitars going on with screaming singers.

I agree with this..

The drivers in the Elsinore I use have Low Dynamic Compression and this translates to high volume without fatique and for midrange it's a wonderfull thing.

Joel
 
I think one could narrow down metals problem area even further to low mids.
There is an awful lot going on there: Bass harmonics/distortion, guitar fundamentals, voice, toms, snare and depending on eq the fundamentals of the larger cymbals.

In combination with heavy compression a tour de force for any speaker and the poor bugger who has to mix that. ;-)
One of the reasons I never liked mixing metal, so easy to turn that region into a mud bath! Especially if your heart isn't in it because you don't actually like metal…

If he goes with a 10" co-axial (did I get that right?) I would look at a 15" to cross in at somewhere between 175 and 250Hz as a starting point.
 
If he goes with a 10" co-axial (did I get that right?) I would look at a 15" to cross in at somewhere between 175 and 250Hz as a starting point.

I hope you mean actively; passive crossovers simply do not work correctly at low frequencies due to the driver impedance peaks, especially the twin peaks of a ported design. You can't even compensate for those peaks in the network because they change with drive level.

So if you had a 15" on each side, sure, the crossover could be higher than a typical subwoofer. If only 1 sub, then higher crossover could still be OK if it is between the speakers.
 
Yes, I do mean active since I always mean active and because crossing passively that low is just too expensive when using quality parts.

Personally I never really liked mono subs, I very much prefer a proper 3way to 2+1.
Not least because it allows you to cross higher and so remove some stress from the mid range driver. It also cleans up the lower mid/upper bass region which I find important especially with metal.
 
A question on room size..

Hi,

Saying you need loud midrange and then saying this means big woofers
makes no sense for a 3-way. The Tarkus has a big mid unit. YMMV.

For the bass unit, excursion is just as important as size also.

rgds, sreten.

Would the Tarkus be too big for rooms the size of 150-250 sq ft? Don't want speakers to overcome the room as they come "alive". From What I read on Paul's site and a PE thread discussion, his build is residing in a BIG (US standard big :)) room.
 
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