Calling all Harbeth users

[ampman]

I have the compact 7ES2, and am not interested in changing to another speaker brand, except I'd be tempted by 7ES3, SHL5, or even P3ESR depending on future room size.

Luckily, here in Japan, they can be picked up used at reasonable prices from time to time.

As has already been said, not a 5 minute wower, but a grower and a keeper.

 

[AdamWysokinski]

A pair of Harbeth SHL5 in beautiful tiger ebony here. Sound is beautiful - so clear, so natural.. Absolutely a keeper for me.

 

[hifi_dave]

Scott and Honmanm,
As a dealer, I feel uncomfortable talking about them here. I'll just say I've tried them all with Quad II, Leak Stereo-20, lots of Naim, EAR 899, Puresound, Rega Brio, Elicit and Osiris, Luxman 505 (?), LFD and the new Croft range. All sounds good.

I am doing a day for some lads from TAOS forum soon.

 

[joel]

As a dealer, I feel uncomfortable talking about them here.

Don't. Think of this as opportunity provision. It's hard to hear this kind of speaker, and giving people the opportunity really does qualify as a service (and can I come over for a listen to the M40.1s when I'm in the UK - *sometime* this year ).

 

[hifi_dave]

Tony has a big fat cane and I'll get it across my knuckles...

Just e-mail when you're in town.

 

[Tigerjones]

If you're looking for a small standmount that is unfussy about placement, gives good bass for their size, with a natural, easy listening sound then the P3-ESRs are a winner. I'm really happy with mine. They are very easy to drive (good results with 8 watts of valve and currently 10 watts of Sugden) and the Rosewood finish is gorgeous. As Tony L said they aren't an instant wower but a real keeper.

 

[Basil]

What don't they do? They aren't 'snappy' or 'tight',

Scott_01,

Forgive me if I have this all wrong, but what I think you're trying to say is that they don't impose themselves over the music?

hifi_dave, I'd be up for an Harbeth 'open day'

 

[Weecrackpot]

A pair of Harbeth SHL5 in beautiful tiger ebony here. Sound is beautiful - so clear, so natural.. Absolutely a keeper for me.

Snap, Coming over from electrostatics, for me end of the search for loudspeakers forever.....well unless the Tannoy dualconcentrics i acquired recently live up to their reputation when i compare them after the works getting done to them.

 

[Lordhenley]

Many thanks for all the comments, seems it was what I half expected that Harbeth are a great speaker and I am looking forward to the demo next week.

In the meantime keep the comments coming, the more the merrier !

 

[avole]

Harbeth are OK but strictly limited as speakers, plus way overpriced for what they are. Have a listen to some decent Wharfedale 9.1s instead.

 

[AdamWysokinski]

Harbeth are OK but strictly limited as speakers, plus way overpriced for what they are. Have a listen to some decent Wharfedale 9.1s instead.

For me, my music and my room there are no limits for SHL5. They represent one of the very best speakers and are priced very reasonably (in terms of sound quality, build quality, technological advancement of the Radial drivers, etc.), especially comparing to other speakers of similar sound quality.

 

[jlw2000]

I had some P3ESR's for awhile. They sound beautiful. IF positioned properly. The problem for me was that the speakers were for living room use, and intended for bookshelf placement. They didn't sound right (at all) on the shelves, so I moved them to stands, but still out of the way into the room corners. Again, not right. I wasn't getting much of a stereo image, as I found the speakers need to be fairly close together. Plus they don't like being near the wall.

So I pulled them out, and closer together. On stands. In my living room. Once everything was sounding perfect (and truly beautiful) I had a pair of $2k speakers in the middle of my living room. That wasn't going to work. Not for reasons of decor, or traffic flow, or safety (kids).

So I found a nice pair of Rega R1's, which perform beautifully right there on the bookshelf. As God intended bookshelf speakers to be used. Not as beautiful as the Harbeths when ideally positioned, but better than the harbeth when on the shelf. Typical Rega. No fuss.

The point of my long windedness.... for the smaller speakers at least, depends on your room.

 

[vln]

Without wanting to spoil the party, I am one of the people who "moved on from Harbeth".

Let me quickly add that they are great speakers, and the speakers I am replacing them with are slightly more than twice as expensive - in other words, if you want to better you Harbeth, you really need to spend a lot of money (IMO - Tony L might disagree).

I wanted a speaker which is floorstanding and goes deeper than any Harbeth (except the M40, which, however, is way out my price range), and I found the Dynaudio Contour S 3.4, which, if all goes well, arrives coming Saturday. Why floorstanding? I always found the stands had a big influence on the sound - sometimes bad, sometimes good, sometimes just different - I am glad that with floorstanding speakers, this factor is now out of the equation.

Furthermore, with room correction I am now able to have speakers going down low without the problems usually associated with (lots of) bass in not so big / not so perfect rooms.

In comparison, the Dynaudios had more bass (hardly surprising), they sounded smoother and more detailed - but as mentioned before, they cost more than twice as much than the Harbeths, so yes, I can (and should) expect a better performance; however the law of diminishing returns also holds true for speakers (but probably to a lesser degree than for mains cables ), and I probably won't ever be spending more on conventional passive speakers than what I have spent for the Dynaudios.

In closing, the Harbeths are great speakers, and I if I hadn't discovered the whole room correction thing, I probably would have held on to them, or perhaps considered SHL5s - however here in Switzerland, I think Harbeth don't even have a distributor, which would make auditions very difficult - in the end, you always have to work with what you can realistically audition and buy. What is the point if someone on a forum tells you about the best speakers in the world, but they are only being sold in 2 shops in Outer Mongolia?



Samuel.



PS:
Alan Shaw is a great guy to deal with and he has certainly the right attitude towards HiFi

 

[Scott_01]

Scott and Honmanm,
As a dealer, I feel uncomfortable talking about them here. I'll just say I've tried them all with Quad II, Leak Stereo-20, lots of Naim, EAR 899, Puresound, Rega Brio, Elicit and Osiris, Luxman 505 (?), LFD and the new Croft range. All sounds good.

I am doing a day for some lads from TAOS forum soon.

No worries Dave, I'm sure they will have a good day. My Crimson Mono's sounded better than I'd heard before but didn't give the detail or tone that the accuphase does.

What don't they do? They aren't 'snappy' or 'tight',
Scott_01,

Forgive me if I have this all wrong, but what I think you're trying to say is that they don't impose themselves over the music?

hifi_dave, I'd be up for an Harbeth 'open day'

Yes that's what I meant, I did say I was inept didn't I?

 

[honmanm]

Have just been listening to a pair of P3ESRs (first serious listen to them). Quite different from 1st gen P3s, a more balanced sound and there doesn't seem to be a "presence" bump (almost a pity, I'm a sucker for emotional midrange).

Resolving power of the P3ESRs is really remarkable, try some complex music where backing instrumentalists are doing their own thing very creatively.

And so far they are getting along pretty well with the two £100 amps that I've tried.

FWIW they are on Rega Kyte stands.

 

[agentsmith]

Without wanting to spoil the party, I am one of the people who "moved on from Harbeth".

You did not mention which Harbeth you are moving from.

I have a pair of Harbeth Monitor 30s. I was thinking of moving to the more Dynaudio Confidence C1 which I think is quite a bit more expensive. I went over to a friend's place for a 2 hour listening session.

While the Dynaudio is definitely more HiFi with more highs and lows and image like a champ, I preferred my Harbeths and decided not to proceed with the change. My friend did have top of the line Accuphase room equalization but even with different settings I find the C1 too "HiFi" for my taste, and may get a little tiring compared to the Harbeths.

 

[hockman]

What you really, really want to hear is the M40.1....

These are great speakers and frankly not that expensive given that they are full range, and in comparison to hi end "audiophile" speakers.

An friend drives them with a tubed Leben integrated and also alternatively with a variety of cheap old solid state amps (although for some reason they never seem to get along with the Rega Elicit). They never fail to sound musical, i.e. communicate the musical message well.

They will definitely be on my short, short list of speakers to audition if I were in the market for new speakers (even taking into account I am currently using Naim DBLs). I kinda like the pro version.

OTOH while I like the HL7s, I wouldn't be able to live with the HL5s which I thought were a bit laid back and slow.

 

[vln]

You did not mention which Harbeth you are moving from.

The Compact 7 ES-2.

I have a pair of Harbeth Monitor 30s. I was thinking of moving to the more Dynaudio Confidence C1 which I think is quite a bit more expensive. I went over to a friend's place for a 2 hour listening session.

While the Dynaudio is definitely more HiFi with more highs and lows and image like a champ, I preferred my Harbeths and decided not to proceed with the change. My friend did have top of the line Accuphase room equalization but even with different settings I find the C1 too "HiFi" for my taste, and may get a little tiring compared to the Harbeths.

Funnily enough, when I compared the Harbeth P3 with some Dynaudio Audience 52 Special Edition at home many years ago, I preferred the Harbeth due to pretty much the reasons you mentioned.

However I wonder if today my preference would still be the same: these days I simply fail to see anything wrong with "more HiFi with more highs and lows and image like a champ" - if it's on the CD, I want to hear it - high fidelity in the original sense of the word. Room acoustics / room correction plays a very big role in this IME.

Regarding the C1, I agree that they are viciously expensive and that they had better be *very* good for what they cost! (I never heard them) Did you compare the Harbeth side by side with the Dyns at your friend's place? If not, then the comparison might be a bit of a stretch, with two different rooms, two different systems and one system with room-EQ and the other without.

You never know, with room EQ the Harbeth might end up sounding "more HiFi with more highs and lows and image like a champ" - mine certainly do, and as I have written above, to me this is not (or: no longer) a bad thing, but actually how it should be.

BTW, why did your friend need room equalization for such a small speaker?



Samuel.

 

[agentsmith]

We did not compare side by side. But I could tell the different characters of the two speakers quite clearly. I usually prefer extended listening of as opposed to A/B tests.

Quality wise I figured if I moved from the M30s to the C1 it would have been a lateral move. In terms of sonic character the C1 is definitely the more exciting speakers. In my experience, living with a set up is very different than auditioning it. Not sure if I could articulate this properly, the C1 is like marrying a pretty girl, the high maintenance type. The Harbeth is more like a partner who does not give you surprises.

My friend’s listening room is really small. Despite its size, the C1 does require some room to sing. He is a great believer in equalization, he figures people pay thousands for minute differences in cables and tweaks, which could easily be reproduced with the Accuphase EQ at the flick of a switch.

I have to admit he does have a point there. The Accuphase EQ is of very high quality, and could save you a lot of equipment change if you could live with the concept.

 

[dzeikei]

I have ordered a pair of maple Compact 7ES-3's and here's some of my impressions of these speakers. Have heard them with Cyrus, Ayre and Exposure front end, all sounded great but slightly different. Harbeths will sound good with any good front end but I would recommend fast amplifier with good grip. My choice is Exposure as these two sound great together. I'm sure they will work well with the amps like Naim or E.A.R. too or anything similar.

I demoed these speakers at home with my Exposure set up which was 3010s cd, 23/28 amps and P9 as vinyl front end. I listen to a wide variety of music and everything sounded great with these speakers. No matter what kind of music I was playing through them or how good was the recording quality, everything just sounded really good. Some have said that they are not fast enough and that they don't rock but I dont agree at all. They actually do rock if the front end is able to do that and my amps sure have that ability. I've heard that C7's are supposed to be tighter in the bass department compared to SHL5's and if you listen to metal or anything that need really fast bass I'd suggest you to try C7's. They go low enough in the room at least for my tastes.

The most impressive thing with these speakers is the amount of information they give the listener without any fatique. The midrange is marvelous, the bottom end is fast and tuneful and the treble is really good too even if it is metal dome. These speakers just sound right and natural. Instruments sound lifelike with the Harbeths and it's really easy to follow every instrument in the mix. They sounded really quite good at low volume levels too. I have to say they are one of the best speakers I've ever heard regardless the price. As I said I've ordered a pair and will hopefully receive it soon. I can recommend these to anyone in search for new speakers even if the budget is much higher as the list price for these speakers. They really are that good IMO.