That is what people look at first (at the pictures) and start despising metal, without even listening to any of it!! I agree, many of their photos create some very, very bad impressions!!! I feel embarassed myself. However, one should really listen prior to trashing them, they might find good surprises (Quarthon, for example).
And yes, Manowar really look stupid in pictures and concerts for that matter, but I can find a lot of great tracks in their long career indeed. Only Majesty (germany) can equal them on how much metal they claim to be (or sing about) instead of producing metal.
As for the good quality metal CDs, I found the majority of the new material really good in my Rotel/Axiom system, however only a few really stand out. Murph, Helloween latest album (Keeper - legacy) is really good sound quality and not such good music quality. I agree older albums, such as "Walls of Jericho" and both "Keepers" even the "remastered" versions do not sound good at all in a good system. Pity they were their best!
I found the last three albums of Iron Maiden (beginning from Brave New World) of great sound quality in my system. If fact, even their older material is not bad either in their "enhanced" third issue CDs. I don't know if you have seen Rock in Rio DVD: one of the best music DVDs ever, sound and picture wise!!!
