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Fixing harsh vocals on p3esr xd

I have the 30.2XD. I'd characterize them as mostly neutral and flat where vocals are concerned. Vague, yes, but they aren't a warm speaker IMO. I briefly tried the P3's and found them more accentuated in the treble and not to my taste - I know this goes against received wisdom, perhaps the tweeter material effect mentioned above.
 
Same situation for me regarding metal dome tweeters. They are usually very impressive at first but tiring/fatiguing on the long term for my sensitive ears.

The annoyance for me is the top end (as far as I can hear) is frequently superb, the problem to my ears is always at the very bottom of their range where they crossover to the bass mid.

PS For TV/YouTube duties I really couldn’t be more happy with the little Spendor S3/5R. They have a totally seamless crossover region, err on the side of smoothness, have more bass than one would expect from such a small speaker and can be had second hand for £500 or so. They seem perfectly suited to this role; very clear and articulate on speech, balanced on music, but never draw adverse attention to themselves. I recently (last night in fact) compared them to the vastly more expensive Falcon LS3/5As and ultimately they lack midband resolution in comparison, but in a TV role that arguably ends up being a strength. They are very, very good little speakers that get out of the way to the point you just forget them.
 
I have the 30.2XD. I'd characterize them as mostly neutral and flat where vocals are concerned. Vague, yes, but they aren't a warm speaker IMO. I briefly tried the P3's and found them more accentuated in the treble and not to my taste - I know this goes against received wisdom, perhaps the tweeter material effect mentioned above.

The M30.2 is a completely different speaker, with a very good soft-dome tweeter from SEAS. It's also flatter on axis and extends deeper into the sub-bass.
 
At a guess, I would think this is down to the XD (potentially) being voiced a bit brighter / having a metal domed tweeter. The ATCs may be v revealing and detailed, but it's still a soft domed tweeter and fairly smooth with it.

Even if the P3ESR is traditionally thought of as smooth and warm, the new version may be somewhat different.
 
The M30.2 is a completely different speaker, with a very good soft-dome tweeter from SEAS. It's also flatter on axis and extends deeper into the sub-bass.

Agreed, just proffering some XD insights at Ryder's request.

Looking at Stereophiles older measurements of the SCM11, it seems they have something of a BBC dip.
 
I have the 30.2XD. I'd characterize them as mostly neutral and flat where vocals are concerned. Vague, yes, but they aren't a warm speaker IMO. I briefly tried the P3's and found them more accentuated in the treble and not to my taste - I know this goes against received wisdom, perhaps the tweeter material effect mentioned above.
Useful to know. I've mentioned it several times on this forum and other forum before. The M30.1 and 30.2, to me reproduce the human voice to sound as real and lifelike as possible, in this respect more capable than all other Harbeth models which include the C7ES3 and SHL5 in all variants. The M30 is really excellent in this respect.

It's good to note the 30XD is sounding great and does not show the brightness of the P3. FWIW based on my limited experience with the P3ESR non XD, it didn't sound bright to me
 
p3esr is very very different from p3esr xd.

I've painstakingly use my adi-2 to check which frequency is causing that harshness and it seems to be the region around 380-500hz. its making certain youtube videos unlistenable.

I don't have this problem when using my earphones or the ATC so its either p3esr XD has a bump in that region, or my room generally causes a bump in that region. When it comes to the harbeth p3esr xd, the first thing that i have to retune the EQ (as compared to the ATC), is the 100hz range. I have eq-ed down -3db for my ATC 11 but for the p3esr xd, I have to reduce that to -5db.

even my falcon ls3/5a gold badge has this harshness at that 380-500hz region. maybe its the ls3/5a design coupled with my room that causes it.
 
I suspect it is just that you don’t like the Harbeth presentation. If the problem exists there, but doesn’t on the ATCs, then it isn’t a source issue and trying to notch-out something you don’t like will likely be frustrating and ineffective. Given how specific the issue I’d personally just flip them for another speaker. There are a lot of very good mini-monitors around at the moment.
Yep, I’ve tried to fix issues with a speaker before, specifically the Focal 1038Be, I found it overblown at the bottom and harsh/shrill at the top end… persisted for a few days trying to set them up/compensate for their balance before giving up and returning them to the dealer (they were already open box so this was no hardship for the dealer)… I just didn’t like them, and nothing was going to fix that, which is why I said above “or buy a speaker that you like”, I put an emoji as to not be condescending, but I’ve been there and bought kit I can’t get on with.
 
p3esr is very very different from p3esr xd.

I've painstakingly use my adi-2 to check which frequency is causing that harshness and it seems to be the region around 380-500hz. its making certain youtube videos unlistenable.

I don't have this problem when using my earphones or the ATC so its either p3esr XD has a bump in that region, or my room generally causes a bump in that region. When it comes to the harbeth p3esr xd, the first thing that i have to retune the EQ (as compared to the ATC), is the 100hz range. I have eq-ed down -3db for my ATC 11 but for the p3esr xd, I have to reduce that to -5db.

even my falcon ls3/5a gold badge has this harshness at that 380-500hz region. maybe its the ls3/5a design coupled with my room that causes it.
380Hz-500Hz is too low in frequency to cause 'harshness' IMO. 'Harshness' tends to live within the 1kHz-8kHz area. 'Harshness' is of course a subjective term and can mean different things to different people. It's interesting that you note the LS3/5A exhibits the same problem, which leads me to think it could be a room or furniture issue. I had Falcon Q7 on demo recently, which are apparently extremely similar to the LS3/5A in its tuning, and I didn't hear or measure any resonance at the frequencies you mention. If anything I found the Q7 slightly dipped between 300Hz-500Hz in my room and could have done with a little more output at these frequencies. Do you use your speakers on a table/desk or on proper floor stands? The desk might be causing a reflection that's creating a resonance at those frequencies.
 
even my falcon ls3/5a gold badge has this harshness at that 380-500hz region. maybe its the ls3/5a design coupled with my room that causes it.

I certainly hear no harshness or crossover anomalies with my Falcon LS3/5As, they are absolutely seamless across the mid-band to my ears. I just can’t hear where the bass-mid stops and the tweeter comes in.

There is absolutely nothing in common between the Harbeth and an LS3/5A. Literally nothing aside from basic cabinet dimensions. Absolutely everything else is different (drivers, driver materials, crossover design, impedance, cabinet materials etc etc). No commonality here. They are as different to an LS3/5A as they are to the ATC.

PS How loud do you listen and with what amp do you drive them? Both the Harbeth and the LS3/5A have a limited volume envelope. The ATC will comfortably go a lot louder assuming a good clean amp behind it.
 
@tuga TBO: I also found the RME Dac to be very bright and coarse. Also Hegel isn't really on the warm side of electronics as far as I have read.
 
380Hz-500Hz is too low in frequency to cause 'harshness' IMO. 'Harshness' tends to live within the 1kHz-8kHz area. 'Harshness' is of course a subjective term and can mean different things to different people. It's interesting that you note the LS3/5A exhibits the same problem, which leads me to think it could be a room or furniture issue. I had Falcon Q7 on demo recently, which are apparently extremely similar to the LS3/5A in its tuning, and I didn't hear or measure any resonance at the frequencies you mention. If anything I found the Q7 slightly dipped between 300Hz-500Hz in my room and could have done with a little more output at these frequencies. Do you use your speakers on a table/desk or on proper floor stands? The desk might be causing a reflection that's creating a resonance at those frequencies.

Desk reflection definitely a culprit if they are positioned near one...
 
Desk reflection definitely a culprit if they are positioned near one...

Good point, as would be angle unless the speakers were tilted back. I find very few if any flat baffle speakers sound better if you are listening above the tweeter axis (I tend to prefer being below the tweeter and suspect this time-aligns some speakers rather better).
 
I certainly hear no harshness or crossover anomalies with my Falcon LS3/5As, they are absolutely seamless across the mid-band to my ears. I just can’t hear where the bass-mid stops and the tweeter comes in.

There is absolutely nothing in common between the Harbeth and an LS3/5A. Literally nothing aside from basic cabinet dimensions. Absolutely everything else is different (drivers, driver materials, crossover design, impedance, cabinet materials etc etc). No commonality here. They are as different to an LS3/5A as they are to the ATC.

PS How loud do you listen and with what amp do you drive them? Both the Harbeth and the LS3/5A have a limited volume envelope. The ATC will comfortably go a lot louder assuming a good clean amp behind it.

I disagree about p3esr being different from Falcon. They have similar voicing and frequency response curve.
 
Thank you all for the help. I've never intended this thread to be about p3esr xd, but rather about how to get rid of harshness I've found in my situation. Essentially, I was wondering if harsh vocals usually means a bump in certain frequency range or perhaps some creative ways to measure it.

I've tried using a frequency analyser app and playing a frequency sweep on my speakers but apparently that didn't help. Anyone who have success with this do let me know which app did you use.

Regarding comments about p3esr xd, or the Falcon gold badge that I've mentioned, I have no doubts about them being great. My previous p3esr (non xd) and Falcon silver badge did not have such harshness problems. I'd like to think my room is inherently bad and the extra transparency of these speakers just push it over for me.
 
Thank you all for the help. I've never intended this thread to be about p3esr xd, but rather about how to get rid of harshness I've found in my situation. Essentially, I was wondering if harsh vocals usually means a bump in certain frequency range or perhaps some creative ways to measure it.

I've tried using a frequency analyser app and playing a frequency sweep on my speakers but apparently that didn't help. Anyone who have success with this do let me know which app did you use.

Regarding comments about p3esr xd, or the Falcon gold badge that I've mentioned, I have no doubts about them being great. My previous p3esr (non xd) and Falcon silver badge did not have such harshness problems. I'd like to think my room is inherently bad and the extra transparency of these speakers just push it over for me.

I'd look into how the digital signal is going into the DAC as the Hegel/RME duo is probably on the analytical side.

I am more inclined to believe that the issue has more to do with the electronics than anything else.
In spite of all the fuss I would not expect differences between the original and XD to be the cause ("transparency" is a rather opaque marketing word in this particular case), but unfortunately there are no measurements of the XD available for comparison. The P3ESR measured by Stereophile does show a breakup resonance of the cone at a frequency where the ear is most sensitive, one which matches ; perhaps this is what is troubling you (maybe because the speakers need a few more hours of hard work)?

810Harfig9.jpg

https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-p3esr-loudspeaker-measurements



This graphs by matering engineer Bob Katz links subjective attributes and frequency bands:

j2djki1.png
 
How are they supported on the desk? A pair of isoacoustics stands or something to decouple and lift them a bit from the desk should help them out no end
 


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