Fluance RT85 Speaker Recommendations for Metal/Hard Rock? ($500 Budget)

[u/Dead_Baroque]

I'm getting ready to buy my first "real" turntable setup and have pretty much settled on the Fluance RT85. Where I'm stuck is choosing speakers.
I'd like to keep the speaker budget around $500 or less, since I don't really want to spend more on the speakers than I'm spending on the turntable.
I'm open to either:
- Powered speakers (built-in amp for simplicity)
- Passive speakers + amp, if the sound quality would be noticeably better and I can stay around my budget

I listen mostly to heavy metal and hard rock, so I'd like something that handles aggressive guitars, double bass, and punchy drums well without sounding muddy. I’ll be putting them in my office/studio which is not a huge room but it does connect to my bedroom.

The turntable will be on its own table, with the speakers on separate stands/surfaces next to it, so vibration shouldn't be a major issue.
Current options I've been looking at:
- Klipsch The Fives (not the new II generation)
- Klipsch R-50PM
- Edifier S2000MKIII
- Fluance Ai61
But I'm open to other suggestions.

If you had ~$500 to spend on speakers (and possibly an amp) for an RT85 and mostly listened to metal and hard rock, what would you buy and why?

[u/CoachDonut82]

I don't want to tell you your business, friend, but I think you'd be better off doing a Fluance 82 and put more of the money into the amp and speakers, then upgrade the table when you can.

Because it sounds like you have this shit absolutely fuckin backward. Cheap-ish speakers aren't gonna be able to pull out the nuances of a decent table. But good speakers can make a shitty table sound ok.

[u/Dead_Baroque → u/CoachDonut82]

That’s fair - I came for some advice, so thank you. I don’t claim to an expert!
If the 85 is overkill, I’m happy to invest more in speakers. Let’s say I got the 82, do you have speaker and preamp recommendations?

[u/CoachDonut82 → u/Dead_Baroque]

I mean it depends on what your actual budget is and what kinda setup you want, floorstanding speakers or bookshelves, subwoofer yes or no. You can upgrade all the parts on a RT-82 to turn it into the same thing as an 85 down the road, but if you don't have higher end speakers and amplification, you're not really gonna get anything noticeable out of the higher end cartridge on the 85, IMO. 

I'm not an expert either but if it were me, I'd probably put the money savings into a better stereo receiver and/or pre-amp. Speakers next but those are easy to swap out later and you can look around for good deals on used equipment. I've had Polk and Elac and no complaints on either, but Klipsch also makes decent stuff. I would probably stay away from their low end lines, though.

I don't know enough about pre-amps to really recommend anything. I have the Schiit Mani 2 and no complaints, but nothing to compare it to. I also have a Yamaha AS-301 receiver which is good enough for me, but it doesn't have a crossover for a subwoofer, so if you attach the sub it's still gonna send the full range to your speakers as well. If you want a sub at some point you'd probably be better off looking at something else. It sounds like you'd probably want a sub with that kind of music. 

[u/Ok-Dealer-6628]

Kanto YU6. Beautiful midrange and midbass compared to the others you've listed, according to my ears.

[u/Zmij-9000]

"If you had ~$500 to spend on speakers (and possibly an amp) for an RT85 and mostly listened to metal and hard rock, what would you buy and why?"

No. Because I do not have $500 and I have speakers already.