How has Rock music (and its offshoots) changed playback hardware?

[rasputin1963]

This is a corollary to my earlier questions about good and bad playback speakers.

 

Has rock music,   and its unique sonic qualities,  changed audio playback considerably?   How?

 

[UstadKhanAli]

I don't know because rock has always been around since I was alive.

But if I had to guess, maybe some speakers were designed to be a little more hyped at the bottom and top ends?  

And in the case of dance music, hip-hop, electronica, etc., if we are to consider these offshoots of rock, maybe considerably more demand for subwoofers than if people had continued to listen to jazz?

[MikeRivers]

Well, let's see . . . it's caused hearing damage so people are listening on high quality hearing aids plugged into their iPods now.

"Rock music" covers a lot of ground, but for sure "dance music" has made the one-note thump subwoofer a household word. No computer is complete without one.

There are a lot of "rock music" audiophiles, though, so they're watching rock videos in their home theaters, many of which are equippiped with one-note subwoofers. And some really sound (and look) great.

[philbo]

I don't know if it is Rock that caused it, but (PA, studio and consumer) speaker systems are much much much better than they were in the '60s.  Some things that contributed to this:

Rare earth magnets (neodymium & similar)

The development of the Thiele - Small equations for designing enclosures (how you get bass down to 40 Hz with a 6" woofer, for example)

The use of line arrays (for large concert venues)

And generally materials and technology:  dome tweeters replacing horn drivers, long excursion woofers, extremely high power class D (& beyond) amps so you can trade efficiency for even freq and transient response for a given loudness level.   There's probably a bunch more I can't think of at the moment.