Quote Originally Posted by Jochem
Of course, what recordings you like and how much is going to vary depending on which speakers you are listening to.

yes! I'm afraid I have te re-evaluate my collection
some jazz they do wonderful
some classical cd's that I thought were good recordings, suddenly show flaws
some songs of Queensryche, which I liked on my old B&W DM110i's, sound pretty awful
Well, I wouldn't go that far! I hope that evaluation process does not entail junking your disc collection to suit your speakers. If you ever read product reviews in high end mags, notice how most of the music that they refer to in their reviews is gawdawful crap that someone would have to pay you to sit through? Doesn't matter to me how well it's recorded, stuff like Amanda McBroom to me is just lousy music that can't stand sitting through. Big difference between someone who loves audio for its own sake, and someone who loves music and will enjoy it whether it gets played through an exotic million dollar system or a transistor radio.

The thing about most pop recordings is that they are not optimized for high resolution systems. They are typically overdubbed to the tilt, compressed, processed, and designed to sound like anything but a live performance (not that there's really any "right" way for amplified instruments to sound anyway). And they are typically mixed using near field monitors, like the Yamaha NS10, that optimize a recording for car audio environments or use with smaller mini system or satellite speakers. A pop recording mixed like this can still sound good on a high res system, but that won't always be the case because the mix was not done with high res playback in mind.

You had the same situation in the 1970s, when most classic rock recordings were mixed using JBL studio monitors. "West coast" speakers like JBL played those recordings very well, while they tended to sound thin and lifeless on most "British sound" speakers like the B&Ws and KEFs of that era. The aftermarket for vintage JBLs remains strong precisely because classic rock fans still prefer how their music sounds when played back through those speakers. (the JBL L65s that my dad bought for $600 in 1976 will fetch more than that if they're in restored condition) Doesn't matter to them that those speakers don't sound very good with classical or a lot of acoustic music.

And with classical recordings, a LOT of the early digital recordings and overly multitracked recordings sound horrendous. Those recordings will be not sound right on pretty much any speaker that does not boost the midrange and/or severely roll off the high end (like a lot of older "high end" speakers did).

When I auditioned the Studio v.3 series, I ran a pretty wide range of music through those speakers, and thought that they fared very well with all of them. The versatility of the Studio series IMO is its strength.