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Munich High End 2018. Harbeth Interview.

M

Martyn Miles

pfm Member
I was idly looking for Harbeth on You Tube and came across an interview with Alan Shaw of Harbeth.
Whether you’re a fan of Harbeth or not, it really is worth watching.
 
To be frank, I think the majority of what he says in that interview is logically flawed and his comments regarding driver cone manufacture are either extremely parochial or just plain poorly informed! What he says is partially true if we are talking about just polypropylene cones specifically but, even then, injection moulding of PP cones is not a new technology, as he seems to think; some manufacturers have been doing this for years now.
 
YNWOAN said:
To be frank, I think the majority of what he says in that interview is logically flawed and his comments regarding driver come manufacture are either extremely parochial or just plain poorly informed! What he says is partially true if we are talking about just polypropylene cones specifically but, even then, injection moulding of PP comes is not a new technology, as he seems to think. Some manufacturers have been doing it for years now.
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He also makes the key point that Harbeth have improved on polypropylene as a polymer cone material with their RADIAL compound, yet others are still using it because they don’t have anything better.
 
He seems to be conveniently ignoring (or just plain choosing to misrepresent) the fact the majority of manufacturers do not use PP comes (though this may well have been true twenty years ago).
 
How many manufacturers are still using paper cones ? I recall Tannoy using paper on their 15”
driver used in the Arden speakers.
 
OK, I’ve listened again, he seems to be saying they developed their own blend of PP 25 years ago - injection moulding cones was pretty cutting edge back then - but this vid is from Munich this year. Since then manufacturers have used all kinds of fillers and even injected fibres etc. Now there are also paper (loads of different varients), paper laminated with foils, metals (press, machined or vapour deposition), Kevlar, carbon fibre, plastic gells etc. Most of these are used in speakers competing with Harbeth.
 
YNWOAN said:
OK, I’ve listened again, he seems to be saying they developed their own blend of PP 25 years ago - injection moulding cones was pretty cutting edge back then - but this vid is from Munich this year. Since then manufacturers have used all kinds of fillers and even injected fibres etc. Now there are also paper (loads of different varients), paper laminated with foils, metals (press, machined or vapour deposition), Kevlar, carbon fibre, plastic gells etc. Most of these are used in speakers competing with Harbeth.
Click to expand...

Not quite right. Harbeth haven’t done anything with PP. They developed - over 4 years with a government grant - a new polymer compound which they named RADIAL that consists of various materials that wouldn’t normally stay together as a compound. This was done to make an improvement on PP, which can’t resolve the finest details in the signal because it turns them into heat.

Btw Alan has said in the past that he considers using paper for cones to be a black art. He said the issue with using paper is that getting consistent results is highly problematic.
 
Well that may be your interpretation but he does talk about PP.

I don’t see the relevance of your comments regarding paper.
 
That's what I was thinking. e.g. "99% of speaker cones are PP, which cannot reproduce fine detail" and "most speakers (except mine) sound harsh and metallic".
 
I got about 6 minutes in and was worried I was going to puke so had to stop - Sorry, but all I see is a salesman that's full of himself.
 
I am, frankly, surprised at the knocking Alan Shaw has taken.
I’m a firm believer in choice, whether it’s speakers or any other consumer product, but
Harbeth must be doing something right given their success.
 
My ‘knocking’ of Alan Shaw, just to be clear, is entirely relating to what he is saying and nothing to do with the man personally or the products his company makes.
 
To be fair to ‘Nagraboy’, On further listening it doesn’t appear than Alan Shaw mentions PP specifically in this vid (though he does effectively describe it). However, if you look at this very similar interview with Mr Shaw he does specifically refer to PP and Harbeth’s proprietary mix.


If I’m being generous, when Alan Shaw talks about the uniqueness of his driver technology he must be referring to its inception, 25 years ago; because, by today’s standards, there is nothing unique about injection moulded cones or the use of fillers and propriety blends of PP, ABS, PE etc.
 
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