[Hifi Man]

I've been getting into the idea of listening to music through speakers, as I've even  found through using my very weak logitech z623 desktop speakers, I find I can appreciate music a lot more through hearing it through speakers than headphones.
 
I'm looking for a run down of speakers, from the cheapest, to the 800 dollar range. Basically I listen to death metal, black metal, thrash metal, heavy metal, and the death metal always pushes my speakers over the limit, so I'd want some speakers with beastly, huge, loud sound that still sounds clear and I can hear all the dynamics of the music.
 
I live at my parent's home, so I don't have much space in my room. I do have a bit of room on my desk for speakers, that's where I put my logitech speakers. I'm interested to know in what range I could be looking at a full size speakers setup, and how much space that would take up, which is restricted in my case. 
 
Here's a sample of the some music my speakers absolutely fail at producing sound for
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3L31w6Xi0I Morpheus Descends - Ritual of Infinity
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nAd-jnRDAM Rippikpoulu - Musta Seremonia
 
Thank you.

 

[TheKillerPiglet]

Maybe look at Klipsch or Cerwin Vega, they have a many of models with 95+ dB of sensitivity for low prices.
 
KP

 

[Hifi Man]

Do these require an amplifier? Is there a difference in quality and price between desktop speakers and floor standing speakers? I'm pretty sure I'd want bookshelf speakers though. Those two suggestions seem promising, yet I don't quite know any way of how to decipher which one would be the best choice.

 

[pandastyle]

I have a set of B&W 686 bookshelf speakers (well, I have the entire 684 theatre set, but right now my 686's are the only thing hooked up) and they sound great with death metal. ****, the cones are made of ******* kevlar. That **** stops bullets. Varg could shoot you in the face, the bullet could go through and hit the cones and it would stop it and still play black metal loud as **** without distorting (at least in my head...).

 

[TheKillerPiglet]

They do require amplification, both will play very loud with fairly little power and insanely loud with gobs of power. When I went through my loud music phase, back in the day, I had a pair of 12" Cerwin Vega speakers. These would make the walls shake and could literally crack the plaster on the ceiling. I was driving them with a 100 watt Akai receiver.
 
Anyway... looking at the bookshelf speakers you will not have as much bass or efficiency so you won't have as much impact.
 
I just took a quick look, and these might be some to try out:
 
http://www.klipsch.com/rb-61-ii-bookshelf-speakers-pair
 
KP

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

...I find I can appreciate music a lot more through hearing it through speakers than headphones.
 
...Basically I listen to death metal, black metal, thrash metal, heavy metal, and the death metal...

I live at my parent's home...

 
Maybe you can appreciate those darker metal genres through speakers better, but how about your parents?

One reason why the Head-Fiers are younger than traditional speaker audio people, aside from economics (income, home size, etc), is having to compromise on the noise.
 
I live at my parent's home too, but they migrated leaving me with a rent-free suburban (ie, I have to drive through traffic en route to work instead of walking to the metro rail) house, and the only thing keeping me from a full-on speaker set-up is how the acoustics suck. I had Wharfedale Pi10s and a NAD304 here,plus my old Marantz CD60, but no matter how large my bedroom is, the roof slope on one side means it has to be the back of the system, but I also get a concrete wall with the windows on the left channel and the wood interior wall on the right channel. In other words, acoustics suck.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Hifi Man /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I live at my parent's home, so I don't have much space in my room. I do have a bit of room on my desk for speakers, that's where I put my logitech speakers. I'm interested to know in what range I could be looking at a full size speakers setup, and how much space that would take up, which is restricted in my case. 
 

 
 
Quote:

Do these require an amplifier? Is there a difference in quality and price between desktop speakers and floor standing speakers? I'm pretty sure I'd want bookshelf speakers though. Those two suggestions seem promising, yet I don't quite know any way of how to decipher which one would be the best choice.

 
A few things you should consider :

1) Multi-driver speakers have time-alignment issues in small spaces. A 3-way or more speaker (ie, tower speakers) in a small room usually leads not just to problematic reflections, but localization of sound sources given the way the frequencies are split and your distance to the speaker box. When I had 3-way Wharfedale 8.4s at my college condo/dorm (which kept the noise in the unit) the bass was audibly set lower than the other frequencies, and most of the treble higher. One fix was to use acoustic treatment on the floor but this will only work if you only walk there to fiddle with the sound system, like load discs, but in my room this wasn't enough anyway. In cars also even that small space you might have seen 3-way set-ups in front, but even with 2-way set-ups - even in cars with a relatively unobtrusive dashboard/instrument cluster hood shape - usually a processor is necessary to apply time delay to the closest speakers, individually tailored, and there's no real way to make it sound really "right" for both the driver and the passenger.
 
2) Even a 2-way tower isn't all that manageable. While you get a bigger enclosure for deeper bass, it may come at the cost of articulate bass, which in metal generally is necessary to properly support the double pedal work as well as the fast bass guitar, the trade off is you won't have as much flexibility in mounting them at ear-level if they aren't tall enough. If your desk is too wide, they could be too far to the left and right but he center point between them isn't far enough ahead of you relatively.
 
3) Single fullrange speakers have their own problems though; a good one is usually expensive, but an extremely basic one might have treble peaks. Either way most standmount FR speakers have much lower sensitivity than floorstanders.
 
That said I'd go for 2-way active monitors; go for 6" or thereabouts, rebuild/upgrade or add to your desk as necessary to support the weight and have them at the proper height relative to your ears while listening. I'm using Swan D1080MkII 08, with 5.25" drivers and they're fast and reach deep enough for my music with fast metal bass drum/guitar work (like Mudvayne, but most of my music are prog and power metal).

 

[Theogenes]

if you can find a set of Onix Rockets (760s or 850s would be ideal), they would probably be cheap since the company that made and distributed them went out of business, and they just have a gut-punching impact on double bass that CRUSHED with metal. Also, the Rosewood versions were absolutely gorgeous.


Also, a quick doff of the cap for the Vikernes reference. Nice

 

[Hifi Man]

In terms of price, I see the klipsch speakers and cerwin vega speakers range in the hundreds of dollars for price. If what that guy said about the amount of space effecting sound and all has to do with the quality, would it make sense just to go for maybe a 100+ dollar speakers? Btw, my parents are always at work and I'm alone in the house most of the time, so annoying anyone is never a problem. If I could get good quality, loud sound through - not the most expensive speakers in the world - then I think that would definitely be worth it. Right now, I'm just looking for a basic upgrade, because honestly I have no idea what to expect ordering any speakers.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

In terms of price, I see the klipsch speakers and cerwin vega speakers range in the hundreds of dollars for price. If what that guy said about the amount of space effecting sound and all has to do with the quality, would it make sense just to go for maybe a 100+ dollar speakers? Btw, my parents are always at work and I'm alone in the house most of the time, so annoying anyone is never a problem. If I could get good quality, loud sound through - not the most expensive speakers in the world - then I think that would definitely be worth it. Right now, I'm just looking for a basic upgrade, because honestly I have no idea what to expect ordering any speakers.

 
You can get $1000 and $200 nearfield monitors if you can afford it and chances are they can sound better than the Dynaudio Contour S5.4 (that's a very rough example but that's the jist of it). It's not just the price but the speaker design. Of course my Swan D1080MkII 08's are cheaper than the Wharfedale 8.4+NAD304 amp in terms of MSRP but the real benefit is that the former are 2-way speakers with crossovers tuned for and driver dispersion chosen for nearfield application, as well as a deskmount enclosure that one can fit on the desk at ear level. If you have for example a computer table flanked by 3-way (or more) towers, chances are it won't matter if it's a Wharfedale 8.4 ($400 MSRP here back then) or a Focal Stella Utopia ($$$$$$$$) - you still have too many speaker drivers in one box you're sitting too close to. And no, just a meter back won't work that well - when they set that one up at hi-fi shows it's about three to four meters away. Fantastic soundstage though, but basically a speaker that doesn't compromise for cost and size (or at least not as much) tends to demand you don't compromise on the listening area either.
 
In any case for $100 there are a lot of affordable standmounts that some people use for nearfield, I'm just not as quick to recommend them because I haven't listened to them as such. I've only briefly heard the Dayton standmounts and a T-amp and it wasn't nearfield, but for that brief time I felt they need a bit more low-freq reinforcement. Others might chime in with tips on how that can be improved though, or if they work better nearfield.