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Metal

Dave***t said:
. ...Chaos Breed from Clandestine, getting to know some new Harbeth speakers. Harbeth aren’t supposed to work with this kind of stuff, but they’re actually quite good at it.
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Interesting, I've read that they're not best suited to rock/metal but is it just that people expect this genre will be played at ear-splitting levels?

What else have you lined up to put them through their paces?
 
Yeah it’s an oft-quoted line. And then again there’s plenty who say that good speakers and/or Harbeths can do any genre. There used to be a poster on the Naim forum who championed Spendor 3/2 models as the supreme rock speakers.

I think at least some of it has to do with snobbery. Real music is civilised, whereas morons who like rock just want boom and tizz, that kind of thing. People who know very little about the music in question opining on behalf of others in a way which shows their prejudice more than illuminates the matter, basically. And not helping that prejudice, there’s a post by Alan Shaw somewhere saying that to make a rock & pop speaker he’d have to do things differently, essentially beefing up max volume, boom and tizz.

I think that’s completely wrong, at least for the properly heavy end of metal. There’s loads of poorly produced, harsh sounding albums where the last thing you want is any extra treble emphasis. And many producers already use tricks to get the sound they’re after, eg toppy/clicky kicks, so the recording already has what it needs without speakers sticking their oar in.

Personally I prefer the equipment to be able to deliver things like a guitar sound with guts - one thing that piqued my interest with Harbeths was hearing Dismember on P3s. Loads of (‘modern’) hifi seems to de-emphasise the low mids in an attempt to sound transparent or detailed, and it kills metal IMO. If anything I’d like these 30.1s to be more warm/gutsy, not less. They’re really good though, and even if some day I try Classic 2/3s or something like that, I think I’ll be keeping the Harbeths for some time.

Other reasonably proper metal I think works well as a test are the first track on Heartwork (palpable quality to the guitars) and Under A Serpent Sun off Slaughter of The Soul (can sound toppy sometimes, needs to sound gutsy).

Today I’ve mostly been on a bizarre nostalgia trip through the soundtrack to the original TMNT film from 1990 though, so I’m not a reliable witness! :)
 
Haha TMNT - old school! Never saw the movie.

I hope the Harbs work out, my girlfriend likes the look of them. What amp are you using?
 
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It's dreadful, as is the soundtrack! But it's a treat for my inner 12 year old.

They're good so far, certainly. I'm running them with Naim gear, with a 250.2 at the end. So there's a reasonable amount of power and a tendency towards liveliness that the Harbeths at least notionally balance out a bit. Certainly worth an audition if poss, I'd say.

And in a more metal vein, I should be seeing Revenge on Thursday. That will be interesting.
 
Well, Revenge didn’t really have the sound one would have hoped, so it wasn’t quite the event I thought it might be.

Emperor playing Anthems... was pleasingly nostalgic though. If a little horrible to think that it came out over 20 years ago. Their drummer (I think it was Trym) was phenomenal.
 
Dave***t said:
Well, Revenge didn’t really have the sound one would have hoped, so it wasn’t quite the event I thought it might be.

Emperor playing Anthems... was pleasingly nostalgic though. If a little horrible to think that it came out over 20 years ago. Their drummer (I think it was Trym) was phenomenal.
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Can you add a link to some Revenge, Dave? I don't know them and I'm getting weird Google search results (like Peter Hook from New Order plays in the Canadian blackened death metal band).
 
Haha yep, definitely brutal. Not trying to sell it though, I realise it’s a fairly limited cup of tea. I was just curious if they could convey that level of fury in the live arena. Have to say I wasn’t floored by it, but the sound was far from perfect, but fair play to them for trying.

Just about to play a live streamed gig at a packed small venue in London. Should be interesting, fingers crossed!
 
Randomly seeing a video about a strange Hindu sect earlier set off a good spin of Ugra Karma by Impaled Nazarene (because of the song Sadhu Satana). Not listened to it in years, so a nice blast.
 
Blackmetalboon said:
The CD is already in my virtual shopping basket. It’s also released in time for me to be able to empty the room at the next “Bake-Off” I’m hoping to attend.:)
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Ha, sure to go down a treat with any audiophile gathering!

Semi-relatedly, I just watched the latest episode of Elementary (well, the latest one on Now TV, at least), and couldn’t resist a quick pause on a shot of a playlist supposedly made by a character who liked death metal. Much to my surprise, it was a proper playlist with many tracks I have/recognise. Disgorge, Gorguts, that sort of thing. Someone on the staff must be a fan of the properly heavy stuff. And Holmes certainly has a posh stereo (loads of McIntosh stuff in the background) - maybe that was picked by the same staffer, and your choice really would go down well at their bake-off!
 
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