Martyn Miles
pfm Member
So, time moves on and my LS3/5as have moved on. I bought a pair of early Harbeth HL Monitors. Superb. A little later a pair HL-P3s. Equally superb... My various LS3/5as were good, no doubt, but these Harbeths are keepers.
Calling all Harbeth users
- Thread starter Lordhenley
- Start date
So, time moves on and my LS3/5as have moved on. I bought a pair of early Harbeth HL Monitors. Superb. A little later a pair HL-P3s. Equally superb... My various LS3/5as were good, no doubt, but these Harbeths are keepers.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
There are lots of great speakers out there. Some will use more advanced materials technology to get their sound, like Wilson Benesch or B&W but Alan Shaw and one or two other Brits seem to be able to use simple ingredients and really produce something special, beyond the sum of its parts. That for me is the essence of engineering.
Martyn Miles
pfm Member
Quite. Some of these modern speakers may have 'the sound', ( whatever that is...) but aesthetically are unacceptable to me and, I suspect, many others. Floorstanders ( which appear popular these days ) such as Elacs, Dalis, JBLs, etc. are, to my eyes, ugly. The £140,000 'The Sonus Faber' may sound good, (Then it ought to at that price! ) but I find its looks unacceptable. Give me a modest wooden cabinet and understated grille, such as a Harbeth and Spendor model. Perhaps its because I'm old and don't like flashy modern things, but if it has the quality and is acceptable in my home that's what I'll buy... Martyn Miles .
I owned both the C7ES3 and the P3ESR, simultaneously. Both are extremely accomplished speakers which one could be very happy with. Nevertheless, I have sold both pairs. Why? Silly yet simple: I managed to like them, but never to love them. There was always a sense that I was listening at least as much to the speakers as I was listening to the music. At least the newer Harbeths, to me, are a bit too self-consciously clean and embrace a 'listen to me'-attitude (qualities which are also uncannily important to their creator). Accordingly, I have replaced the C7ES3's with my old love, the Proac Response Two (not the new model), and the P3ESR's with a pair of Spendor S3/5R's. Both, to me, are more enjoyable when it comes to letting the music take over. Having said that, let it be clear that I would never advise anybody against buying Harbeths.
Martyn Miles
pfm Member
A nice, balanced, comment...
Jodet
pfm Member
S3/5E over P3ESR?
You might be the only person in the world who would make that choice.
Ozi2
Veteran Member
Hm, I understand what you want to say , but I am not sure that he is the only one. I sold P3ESR and bought ProAc Response One SC. Why? For similar reason. P3ESR have so much good things to show, but I always felt that it hold so much behind it. Also, impression that I always listen to speakers with them distract me to much from total enjoyment. So, I rather enjoy them partially from time to time when timbre is important, but not dynamic. I hope I should find in bigger Harbeths what is missing in small Harbeth, so at the moment I have 7ES-3 at home demo which although it have something, it is very slow and weak from my subjective point of view. Tone is good, but when it's busy material, it sounds like someone has sucked life out of it. Before 7, I heard new M30.1 which has been my first candidate on the list, but these are really typical Harbeths and for me although bigger, they are not so good like P3ESR, but then again, this is all subjective. I cannot ignore so laid back character and I cannot accept cliche that Harbeth is right and everything else is wrong and sound in a forceful way. I do respect Harbeth designer and everything he do, but somehow I believe that with Harbeth speakers I listen tones and not music as a whole, so I am not surprised they are much more popular in Asia. For me it is like owning a car which can go 25km/h max. and trying to convince myself that anything faster doesn' t have sense.
It's a pitty as I found some qualities in Harbeths, but still not enough for me.
Cheers
The Spendor S3/5 is on the other side of the spectrum, more laidback, softer and smoother in the extremes, less lively and slightly more muffled/rolled off in the treble than the Harbeth P3. The Harbeth is more crisp, leaner and vibrant. So if one finds the Harbeth P3 to sound dull, the Spendors may exhibit more of the character.
The Harbeth is somewhere in the middle, between the Spendor and Proac 1SC.
Singslinger
pfm Member
No he isn't. I'm another who prefers the Spendors to the Harbeths.
I also prefer the ProAc Tablette Anniversary to the P3ESR. It's a close thing though, since Harbeth make very good speakers. But to my ears, Spendor and ProAc are a tad more musical and therefore more enjoyable.
Best advice is to listen in your own system before buying.
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
I remember saying the same thing to a polar bear when we talked about hi-fi. He said I was mad, 'Harbeths don't work in the zoo, man'.
Painful even for me.
Elephantears
Trunkated Aesthete
Ozi2, I don't recognise what you are saying about the 7's. Can you give us some context; what amplifier, size of room, and what music sounds lacking in dynamics?
bob atherton
pfm Member
Will the P3ESR work tight against a wall like Kans?
Ozi2
Veteran Member
Hi, Nait XS, 5 x 4,5m room, various music from classical to Van Der Graff rock. Vocals are also to shy so everything loose sense. I am not talking about comparation with Naim SL2 edge, but I am talking about natural flow and presence of the music as a whole. Also, I found model 7 metal tweeter integration with midbass driver not so good. P3 is from my point of view much much more correct (this is the right word) speaker than anything else in Harbeth range. Model 7 is somehow unfinished sounded and the fact that is ported add some barrel like sonic signature.
I think it is fair to say that this is all matter of taste and it is only important what float your boat.
Re P3 close to wall postion, I would not reccomend it as back wall would even more load bass which is by default not so focused and to radical so sometimes sound compressed.
Just to add some orientation point, I still didn't met Kan II and Epos 14 beaters.
MikeMA
pfm Member
Some interesting views here, some of which echo my own experinces. I like Harbeths and have owned HLP3-ESRs, C7s and M30s. I never really got on with the C7s. In my room and with my kit (Jadis Orchestra and DA 30 integrated valve amps) the bass always sounded loose and boomy. Having said that, I suspect the problem was my room not the speakers, but I much preferred the M30s and P3s both of which I kept. I find the P3s work fine about 2ft away from side walls and 1.5ft from rear walls. The M30s need a bit more breathing space.
Elephantears
Trunkated Aesthete
Obviously the bass is room related. The range gives you a nice range of options from the 40's. SHL5's are the baritones, C7's are the tenors in the range and M30's are the alto's.
Martyn Miles
pfm Member
My P3s work well about 18 inches from a rear wall. They image very well in that position. My larger HLs give a sense of scale the little '3s cannot, but I love music through either pairs. Given a live recording ( Moody Blues at the Albert Hall ) the HLs are the best. They do need 'room to breathe' though. For an more intimate recording ( female vocal with guitar, for instance ) the P3s are wonderful...