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Harbeth grille disaster?

herb

brain's right hemisphere
My C7s were designed to be used with grilles on according to AS. Of course when I bought them some years ago I immediately took the grilles off. Yesterday for a change I put them back on. Well the C7s looked better but where had my mini ESL type sound gone? The depth of soundstage was different but the instruments were coarse and ill defined, most unrealistic. So the grilles came off again.

For the BBC type designs is it part of the specification that there are grilles attached? It seems to be a limitation soundwise.
 
According to Stereophile in regard to the LS3/5a "It can be seen that using the speaker with the grille on, as recommended, gives the flattest overall response."
https://www.stereophile.com/content/bbc-ls35a-loudspeaker-harbeth-measurements

As for the P3ESR "Fig.4 shows the effect of the grille on the response shown in fig.3. The small peak between 4 and 5kHz is pulled down a little, as is the speaker's output in the top octave, but the mid-treble balance is smoother overall with the grille."
https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-p3esr-loudspeaker-measurements
 
Were they new when you got them? If not, maybe they were re-clothed with the wrong type of fabric?

I bought them new. The fabric is very thin but not acoustically completely transparent it seems
 
My ‘ESRs certainly sounded better balanced with the grilles on.
Presumably all Harbeth models were designed to sound that way.

I think that that that is probably true, but transparency is more important to me it seems
 
According to Stereophile in regard to the LS3/5a "It can be seen that using the speaker with the grille on, as recommended, gives the flattest overall response."
https://www.stereophile.com/content/bbc-ls35a-loudspeaker-harbeth-measurements

As for the P3ESR "Fig.4 shows the effect of the grille on the response shown in fig.3. The small peak between 4 and 5kHz is pulled down a little, as is the speaker's output in the top octave, but the mid-treble balance is smoother overall with the grille."
https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-p3esr-loudspeaker-measurements

Thanks tuga that is very interesting. The sound without grilles seems slightly subdued at the top end to me, helps that ESL sound I suppose. Having said that I took the felt out of my ESL57s all those years ago, I put it back in when I sold them. Stripped out 57s are VERY transparent.:D
 
Thanks tuga that is very interesting. The sound without grilles seems slightly subdued at the top end to me, helps that ESL sound I suppose. Having said that I took the felt out of my ESL57s all those years ago, I put it back in when I sold them. Stripped out 57s are VERY transparent.:D

If I were able to remove the grilles on my Stirlings I would report on the differences but the darn things are near-impossible to pull off.
 
There is a knack with the Harbeths I found, especially putting them back on. Glad to see that the Stereophile testers were 50/50 on/off. They look better grilles on and there is some protection from little fingers I guess. I was surprised at the extent of the difference
 
I can live with either grilles on or off on my SHL5 Plus. Generally pretty accurate assessment so far on this thread.

Speakers look better and have better protection from dust and curious little fingers with grilles on. Sound is slightly more transparent with better clarity when grilles are off. Sound is still good with grilles on.

I had mine on most of the time.
 
Think I recall reading port tuning affected as well as approx half decibel rise in treble.

Subjectively, always found driver integration better on SHL5 Plus with grille in place, though who knows...

Have M30. 2 now and prefer without grille.
 
Think I recall reading port tuning affected as well as approx half decibel rise in treble.

Subjectively, always found driver integration better on SHL5 Plus with grille in place, though who knows...

Have M30. 2 now and prefer without grille.

Yes I think that's true, there is better driver and port integration with grilles on. I must listen to M30s at some stage. They were not an option when I bought the C7s, because they used an earlier version of the Radial driver back then.
 
Yes they did go down well at the Bristol show. I would like to do a dealer demo of the new versions of both C7 and M30 together. I chose my C7s for their better low volume performance compared to SHL5s. The M30s look neater to me and I have too much cash at the moment...

The C7s came alive with an ATC integrated amp, perhaps AS chose the Hegel amp wisely at Bristol. My system sounds great at present to be honest.:)
 


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