Sander deWaal wrote:

Howard Ferstler said:

There is no way I would trust a rock-music recording to give
me meaningful data on speaker soundstaging, imaging, focus,
depth, or even spectral balance.

While I agree with you here, it's an established fact that there are
people out there who use their audio system to listen to rock music
exclusively.

For sure. And those people really do not need for their
audio systems to be genuinely high fidelity items, or even
high-quality items. I suppose this works out quite well for
some of the lunatics who post here and laud the performance
of sub-par hardware. Admittedly, many of them paid way too
much for that gear.

A suitable system for those listeners could well deviate from a system
that's optimalized for classical music.

Yep. While the latter should be optimized for accurate
performance, or, if DSP ambiance emendations are applied,
optimized to allow for the most realistic concert hall
simulation, the former need only deliver head-banging sound.

I do not particularly think that having a familiarity with
popular music is all that useful - for reviewing audio gear
or much of anything else.

What would you recommend to someone asking for a system that will be
used for rock music only?

Stick with automotive systems.

Things like imaging, focusing and spectral balance could be utterly
meaningless to such a person.......

I agree completely. Yes, there are some "pop" recordings
that need high-fidelity treatment, and of course a lot of
acoustic jazz also benefits from playback on really fine
systems. However, rock freaks need not shop for truly exotic
gear, and those who listen to such music and laud the
performance of exotic wires, super-duper CD players,
overpriced amps, and the like are kidding themselves.

Howard Ferstler