Foreword:
In one of my setups I use Harbeth P3ESR SE paired with Yamaha A-S2100 and it's a dream combo for me. P3s are romantic tuned (not high end-ish at all) and Yamaha is very lively and dynamical playing, with nice oomph bass (where p3s profiting substantially) and brings a lot of control over speakers, so they can go loud and still not oversteer.
About half a year ago I bought Super HL5 Plus speakers, which are known for most "high-end" tuning of the whole Harbeth lineup and I never liked them with any of my amps except this Yamaha, but only when using it as a power amp (bypassing preamp section), otherwise they sound too hot for me - mostly mids are a tad too much, same as high-hats of the percussion. When using Yama as a power amp I am steering volume directly from studio grade RME ADI-2 DAC, which is very transparent and has completely flat response.
This way I can listen to them all day long, every kind of music I like and enjoying it a lot. But I don't want to leave this setup like that, since Yama is ment for my P3s and RME is for my desktop and I don't want to own 2 same equipment pieces.
My question is what amp should I try for the SHL5+ if all I want is transparency, neutrality and nothing added except gain?
Something like T+A PA 2000R would work great, but it's 6 grands, has a fan inside and too busy front design - so overall not convincing me. And I would like to keep it under 5k. I don't think I need to say no tubes please.
In one of my setups I use Harbeth P3ESR SE paired with Yamaha A-S2100 and it's a dream combo for me. P3s are romantic tuned (not high end-ish at all) and Yamaha is very lively and dynamical playing, with nice oomph bass (where p3s profiting substantially) and brings a lot of control over speakers, so they can go loud and still not oversteer.
About half a year ago I bought Super HL5 Plus speakers, which are known for most "high-end" tuning of the whole Harbeth lineup and I never liked them with any of my amps except this Yamaha, but only when using it as a power amp (bypassing preamp section), otherwise they sound too hot for me - mostly mids are a tad too much, same as high-hats of the percussion. When using Yama as a power amp I am steering volume directly from studio grade RME ADI-2 DAC, which is very transparent and has completely flat response.
This way I can listen to them all day long, every kind of music I like and enjoying it a lot. But I don't want to leave this setup like that, since Yama is ment for my P3s and RME is for my desktop and I don't want to own 2 same equipment pieces.
My question is what amp should I try for the SHL5+ if all I want is transparency, neutrality and nothing added except gain?
Something like T+A PA 2000R would work great, but it's 6 grands, has a fan inside and too busy front design - so overall not convincing me. And I would like to keep it under 5k. I don't think I need to say no tubes please.
