But for me, without timbre music reproduction can be compared to food which lacks flavour or a modern movie with washed out colours. Occasionally interesting, but rarely engaging.
So my question is, what are your loudspeaker candidates if you are looking for a 'Technicolor' sound?
I know many use tube amps solely for this aim, but perhaps they are a subject deserving an entirely separate discussion.
I went to the show to mainly hear the Vivid Audio and the Audio Note speakers. I was a little concerned that there weren't more familiar names (Arcam, B&W, Marantz, Sony, Tannoy, ProAc, Living Voice, Rega, Pro-ject etc) on show. So naturally I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality of some of the unfamiliar products on offer.
It's often said that hotel rooms are often not a good place to demonstrate Hi-Fi but this didn't seem to be true last Saturday. I did notice that the smaller rooms tended to be playing bookshelf speakers, makes sense. Also, there seemed to careful use of the volume control this time. Some of the previous shows I remember were almost guaranteed to give you a headache by lunchtime.
It was also touching to see enthusiasts, (designers and dealers), who could probably easily make a good living by other far less risk means, choosing to try their hand in audio. Good luck to all of them (except the quick buck cable peddlers - only joking, I'm probably just jealous).
Anyway, for any potential visitor I can recommend taking some form of notes as you go from room to room, via smartphone in my case. It can help focus your thoughts and is a great memory aid at the small risk of looking like a good plated audio nerd.
A good plan/ route of action is also useful as it's all too easy to miss certain rooms in the melee or excitement if the music grips you too much. I seem to have missed both the Townshend room and the bookshelf Kerr Acoustics room - and probably a few others.
@cd318, I also went along to the U.K. Audio Show 2018 (Leamington Spa). I found Audio NEC (surprised to find them there) and Vivid/Mola Mola to be the most interesting rooms.
I’m considering showing myself next year, we would bring along our Boenicke/Mola Mola/Fidata/Sablon system, if we can get the right room. For natural timbre it’s hard to beat the Boenicke W11’s.
Back on August 31st I posted that "getting the reverberant field right" matters if rich and natural-sounding timbre is a high priority.
I think there was a fair amount of skepticism, with @prof expressing it well back on September 8th: "I’ve never heard more room sound contribute to more accurate timbre."
I’d like to offer a youtube video of a presentation by acoustician David Griesinger. David investigates concert hall acoustics, and he has determined which reflection are beneficial and which are detrimental based on timing. He is going to demonstrate this by playing four clips that include and/or exclude early and late reflections.
First, he will play the direct sound only. This clip is time-gated to exclude all reflections, so it sounds thin because the longer wavelengths are also excluded. The singer’s voice sounds "proximate" (up close) because of the lack of reflections.
Next, he will play the direct sound plus the first reflections. The timbre will be a bit warmer because longer wavelengths are included, but the clarity will be significantly degraded.
The third clip is by far the most interesting: Direct sound MINUS the early reflections but INCLUDING the later ones. Now we have clarity along with our elusive friend, Rich Timbre!
The final clip includes them all: Direct sound + first reflections + later reflections. Timbre and clarity are both degraded relative to the third clip, but timbre is still better than the first and second clips.
Here’s the video, start at 13:19 and go to about 15:02, headphones or earbuds recommended:
Just for fun, go back to 14:20 and listen to that third clip again. How about THAT timbre?? Imo THAT is the target!
I believe the psychoacoustic principles demonstrated in David Griesinger's clips have validity that extends beyond the concert hall and into our home listening rooms.
As these clips show, EARLY reflections are detrimental, but LATER reflections can be quite beneficial, enriching timbre with no degradation of clarity. So "more room sound" CAN result in "more accurate timbre" IF it is done right.
@fleschler wrote: "I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me."
I can understand that that's just too much visual weirdness for some people.
The first photo in this show report is taken from well off to one side of the centerline. As you will see, in that location you are well off-axis of the near speaker but nearly on-axis of the far speaker.
Unfortunately the write-up doesn't mention the sweet spot width. But it does talk about soundstage size, in case your first instinct is that the soundstage would be compressed.
"Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers."
I agree. With omnis, the near speaker still "wins" both arrival time and intensity, though it doesn't win the latter by as large a margin as with conventional speaker. So I think there is an argument for the approach I described even compared with omnis because with my approach the far speaker is the one that "wins" intensity.
But you'd have to get past the weirdness, and that may be asking too much.
prof I have a pair of Legacy Focus (originals) in the main listening room and a pair of their Signature IIIs in the living room.
I have managed to achieve a wide sweet spot only recently. I aim my speakers so that I can just see the inside sides from the center seat 13 feet away. Then I use two pair of Shakti Hallographs and 32 SR HFTs mostly on the walls (none on the face of the speakers though-doesn't work for me). My room is larger at 25' X 23'. I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me.
The sound within four feet to the left and right of center now does not have a pronounced sound from the closest speaker on that side. I find that a very happy situation as just two years ago, there was a severe drop off of sound from the further speaker toward the 5' edges away from the center spot.
I've heard several Audio Physic speakers and that's something they're great at, disappearing from the room and creating a wide listening area. Many small monitors can do that too but are destined for smaller rooms. My former 5 pairs of high end (at the time) electrostats were not good for wide listening areas. They beamed the sound towards the center spot (heard the same from Sanders speakers-really narrow listening area).
Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers. Recently, I auditioned the Carver Amazing speakers which excelled in the mids and highs sending sound evenly throughout the large room (as well as incredible stable imaging).
prof I have a pair of Legacy Focus (originals) in the main listening room and a pair of their Signature IIIs in the living room.
I have managed to achieve a wide sweet spot only recently. I aim my speakers so that I can just see the inside sides from the center seat 13 feet away. Then I use two pair of Shakti Hallographs and 32 SR HFTs mostly on the walls (none on the face of the speakers though-doesn't work for me). My room is larger at 25' X 23'. I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me.
The sound within four feet to the left and right of center now does not have a pronounced sound from the closest speaker on that side. I find that a very happy situation as just two years ago, there was a severe drop off of sound from the further speaker toward the 5' edges away from the center spot.
I've heard several Audio Physic speakers and that's something they're great at, disappearing from the room and creating a wide listening area. Many small monitors can do that too but are destined for smaller rooms. My former 5 pairs of high end (at the time) electrostats were not good for wide listening areas. They beamed the sound towards the center spot (heard the same from Sanders speakers-really narrow listening area).
Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers. Recently, I auditioned the Carver Amazing speakers which excelled in the mids and highs sending sound evenly throughout the large room (as well as incredible stable imaging).
prof I have a pair of Legacy Focus (originals) in the main listening room and a pair of their Signature IIIs in the living room.
I have managed to achieve a wide sweet spot only recently. I aim my speakers so that I can just see the inside sides from the center seat 13 feet away. Then I use two pair of Shakti Hallographs and 32 SR HFTs mostly on the walls (none on the face of the speakers though-doesn't work for me). My room is larger at 25' X 23'. I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me.
The sound within four feet to the left and right of center now does not have a pronounced sound from the closest speaker on that side. I find that a very happy situation as just two years ago, there was a severe drop off of sound from the further speaker toward the 5' edges away from the center spot.
I've heard several Audio Physic speakers and that's something they're great at, disappearing from the room and creating a wide listening area. Many small monitors can do that too but are destined for smaller rooms. My former 5 pairs of high end (at the time) electrostats were not good for wide listening areas. They beamed the sound towards the center spot (heard the same from Sanders speakers-really narrow listening area).
Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers. Recently, I auditioned the Carver Amazing speakers which excelled in the mids and highs sending sound evenly throughout the large room (as well as incredible stable imaging).
prof I have a pair of Legacy Focus (originals) in the main listening room and a pair of their Signature IIIs in the living room.
I have managed to achieve a wide sweet spot only recently. I aim my speakers so that I can just see the inside sides from the center seat 13 feet away. Then I use two pair of Shakti Hallographs and 32 SR HFTs mostly on the walls (none on the face of the speakers though-doesn't work for me). My room is larger at 25' X 23'. I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me.
The sound within four feet to the left and right of center now does not have a pronounced sound from the closest speaker on that side. I find that a very happy situation as just two years ago, there was a severe drop off of sound from the further speaker toward the 5' edges away from the center spot.
I've heard several Audio Physic speakers and that's something they're great at, disappearing from the room and creating a wide listening area. Many small monitors can do that too but are destined for smaller rooms. My former 5 pairs of high end (at the time) electrostats were not good for wide listening areas. They beamed the sound towards the center spot (heard the same from Sanders speakers-really narrow listening area).
Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers. Recently, I auditioned the Carver Amazing speakers which excelled in the mids and highs sending sound evenly throughout the large room (as well as incredible stable imaging).
On the plus side, it's a way of getting to know yourself better.
+1 @cd318 Thank you for your post above and a prior post.
Earlier, I had posited that some of the posts by some of the posters were "self-critiques." With the exception of @cd318 , there was silence in response.
Said another way, I was learning far more about the poster than the speaker.
Speakers Do Not Operate In Isolation.
Without the entire system (inclusive of source material, cabling, isolation, power, etc), the room, and the listener being taken into account these 'speaker' discussions are fairly meaningless.
This forum is littered, daily if not hourly with examples, both pro and con on "speakers" working small wonders or frustrating the poster to no end, generally divorced from their systems and themselves.
Focusing (unflinchingly) on understanding one's own self and learning what one's preferences and dislikes are and which trade-offs and compromises (vis a vis one's self or capabilities) one is willing to accept and live with, would be far more helpful THAN the repeated efforts to analyze and deconstruct speaker attributes (especially isolated from the system and room and the individual).
In other words, Understand Yourself. And keep working on it.
I also believe that our discussions would be markedly more polite if we led from What / Who We Are or where we want to go or what we want to be, rather than the focus on singular components.
I recently had the privilege to experience the effort and time one of our members has put into squeezing the very best out of his multiple systems - all bent to his preferences and offering him the connection to, and understanding of, the music in his special and unique way.
I experienced HIS experience in time and space relative to what he has come to know and become, as expressed through his system and room.
Last evening, I was again exceptionally fortunate to experience a completely different system. What I found was one of the best examples in my audio journey (and to my preferences) of balancing sheer musicality in conjunction with many elements of so-called 'modern hi-fi sound' or 'analytical' sound. This system delivered a thoroughly emotional and breath of life connection to the music.
It wasn't the speaker. It was an expression of these audiophiles choices from source material through room reflections.
You can buy electronics based on good reputation or recommendations and get good sound, but speakers are the soul of the system and need to be chosen by personal interaction. But with so few dealers, old speakers are such a pain to resell, package and ship, and it's usually a financial bloodbath, so I don't buy often.
The right speaker (for me) is usually"You know it when you hear it.." I make a short list, set a max price, then wait for Axpona and go with an intent to buy while I'm there. Makes for a fun trip.
Axpona gives you a chance to hear your preconceived short list, then wander the rooms and hear pretty much everything that compares and exceeds. I went to hear Revel, Focal, Elac, Harbeth and heard better that were over budget, then stumbled upon "I knew it when I heard it" (Sonist Concerto 4's) for half my budget. A long-term purchase that I could not have described as "What I want" before I had personal interaction.
@fleshler mentioned his "10 foot wide good sound criteria."
There is an unorthodox technique which can give you good tonal balance over a wide area, and even pretty good soundstaging, though the soundstaging will still be best up and down the centerline.
The basis is this principle of psychoacoustics (which I’m going to simplify a bit): The ear/brain system localizes sound by two mechanisms: Arrival time and intensity. We can take advantage of this to still get a decent soundstage even if we are well off to one side of the centerline.
Let’s first look at a conventional setup. Imagine you’re sitting in the normal sweet spot, speakers facing approximately straight ahead, maybe toed in a little. Perhaps the speakers are ten feet apart. Arrival time and intensity are the same from both speakers, so imaging is good.
Next shift your listening position five feet to one side. The image shifts all the way over to the near speaker. This is because not only are you now much closer to the near speaker, you are also on-axis of the near speaker (or very close to it) and very far off-axis of the far speaker. So both localization mechanisms favor the near speaker. In fact if you only shift partway over, the center vocalist’s image usually shifts farther than you do.
Now let’s try something totally different: First, we start out with speakers that have a very specific radiation pattern: The radiation pattern is 90 degrees wide in the horizontal plane (-6 dB @ 45 degrees off-axis to either side), and this pattern is pretty much constant over as much of the spectrum as is practical (down to 700 Hz would be nice, but down to 1.4 kHz still works well).
Second, we toe those speakers in severely, like maybe 45 degrees, such that their axes actually criss-cross in front of the central sweet spot. Yes it looks weird, but stick with me.
In the central sweet spot, arrival time and intensity is the same for both speakers. But now let’s move over five feet to one side...
Now we are sitting directly in front of the near speaker, so it "wins" arrival time. But we are also very far off-axis of that near speaker. We look over at the far speaker, and by golly we’re just about right smack on-axis of the far speaker! And so the far speaker "wins" intensity! These two psychoacoustic localization mechanisms balance out somewhat, so we still end up with a decent spread of the instruments. Depending on the recording and a few other details, the center vocalist may still be fairly close to the center. Now the soundstaging isn’t going to be as good as it is up and down the centerline, but it’s going to be way better than what we had with a conventional set-up.
The KEY to this working well is, the output of that near speaker must fall off quickly and smoothly as we move off-axis, at least in the mids and highs were we get most of our imaging cues. This crossfiring setup doesn’t work very well with conventional speakers because they don’t have the right kind of radiation pattern - the near speaker’s off-axis response is still too loud.
At audio shows I try to set one chair up against a side wall, actually to the outside its nearest speaker. When the room is full and someone is forced to take that seat, I give them a couple of minutes there and then ask how it sounds. I’ve never had anyone be anything other than pleasantly surprised at how good it sounds even from such an extreme off-centerline location.
Another advantage of this configuration is, considerably more uniform tonal balance throughout the listening area. In particular, the cross-firing configuration results in a more uniform distribution of the highs, so nobody gets cheated in that regard.
One more advantage of this configuration is, it minimizes detrimental early same-side-wall reflections. The first significant sidewall reflection for the left speaker is the long across-the-room bounce off the right side wall, and vice-versa.
There is a slight trade-off: Best imaging for one person in the sweet spot is arguably a bit better with the speakers aimed right straight at the listener’s ears, or maybe aimed at a point a foot or two behind the listener’s head. Some taming of the top-end energy may be needed, as now you are directly on-axis of both tweeters, whereas with the criss-cross setup you are never directly on-axis of both tweeters. The tonal balance will also be less consistent throughout the room when the setup is optimized for a single listener.
So if your priority is "10 foot wide good sound", imo it can be done with the right kind of speakers in the right kind of configuration. Examples of speakers that can do it are the JBL M2 and 4367, the PBN M2!5, anything by Earl Geddes, most models by PiSpeakers, and most of my stuff. I’m sure there are others that don’t come to mind offhand.
For instance, as many know speakers like the Revel brand have been designed using the research spearheaded by the great Floyd Tool and others, in which a scientific approach to studying listener perception and speaker design, combined with blind testing, yielded methods of predicting listener preferences for loudspeaker design. And the Revels were built on those principles.
I auditioned a number of Revel speakers and they were indeed terrific! They clearly benefitted from the research as they were hugely competent in just about every way.
And yet...they didn't quite do "it" for me, for whatever reason. Not as much as a number of other speakers, some of the neutral camp, some of the "musical/colored" camp.
It would be fascinating to take part in the HK blind testing to see if I would in fact pick the HK speakers over some of the ones I like better in sighted testing.
@prof , as you say loudspeaker problems are basically engineering problems and until this century's Ed Villchur comes along and radically advances the technology it is going to remain a case of shuffling compromises.
I hate treble coarseness, as well as a bleached tone like yourself, fsonicsmith couldn't abide a bloated bass, Duke said he didn't enjoy a flat frequency response so as things stand mapman is right - it is a case of horses for courses. At least until a major technological breakthrough arrives. Can't some audiophile at CERN or MIT have a look at this in their spare time? Do they get any spare time?
Duke summed it up really well in that a speaker must do something really well to get your attention, and since they can't do everything well you have to decide which compromise you can live with. As he said it's up to the designer to try to make sure that these compromises are not deal breakers.
Unfortunately for us, the only sure way of knowing this is by listening. On the plus side, it's a way of getting to know yourself better. Oh the lengths we have to go to in the pursuit of beauty.
My wife insisted on removing the large electrostats from my systems and replace them with speakers with bass and dynamics. For me, I required a speaker that sounded good off-axis, basically good along a 10 foot wide sofa, 13’ from the center between the speakers.
Some have commented on how wonderful the inexpensive Tekton speakers are. They maybe but they are reportedly aimed for on-axis performance, like giant headphones. These would not meet my 10 foot wide good sound criteria. Neither do original Quad speakers to those who have heard them.
I also desired a speaker which is easy to drive but can handle moderately high power as well (play quietly and loudly). Once one increases the demands on the speaker measured facilities (bass, dynamics, efficiency, wide seating area), then one has to select other criteria which makes it musical such as timbre, imaging, coherence, slam, PRAT, low-level detail. So, I have limited myself as far as speaker choices which is a good thing because there are so many fine speakers made today to choose from.
@prof wrote: "But when I auditioned [the DeVore O/96] several times against a bunch of more "neutral" speakers, sure some of the defects were likely there in the mix, but not remotely to the overriding audibility the nay-sayers make you fear, and to my ears they were doing SOMETHING really wonderful that most of the other speakers weren’t. (A certain combination of organic tone and body to the sound)."
Excellent description of "what matters most". While the specifics of "what matters most" may change from one listener to another (and from one designer to another), imo you nailed the essence, which is these two things:
1. A speaker must do SOMETHING so well you can get lost in the music. That something can be timbre, imaging, coherence, slam, PRAT, low-level detail, whatever. But it must do something wonderful.
That’s the easy part.
2. The HARD PART is, the speaker must not also do something so poorly as to ruin the magic and collapse the illusion that its "something wonderful" just created. There are more things that can go wrong than I can begin to list.
Apparently the DeVore O/96’s indeed do their something wonderful and then don’t turn around and do something so poorly as to destroy the illusion. Imo that’s the magic formula, and it’s much easier said than done. Kudos to John DeVore.
As for "accuracy", one of the worst-sounding prototypes I ever made was the one with the flattest response. As I tweaked the design closer and closer to flat, it sounded worse and worse. I pressed on, having faith that the heavens would open once I had achieved flatness. Nope. These days my target curve for home audio slopes gently downward as we go up in frequency, so I guess I don't even try to build objectively "accurate" speakers.
Fact is they are. Even if you take taste out of the equation, there is still the listening room variable. No two rooms are the same either and teh room largely determines what you hear with any particular speaker design.
LEt’s not even get into how differently the "best" speaker measured might sound off various amps. Speakers make no sound alone. It’s a team sport.
So one can say you want the most accurate speakers in theory and I would even agree but in practice that alone does not determine which one will choose or even work best in each particular case. So there you go.
Having owned Adagios, they are a great speaker, but based upon a long history listening to them, I think that transmission lines mated to mid-woofers tend to have rather bloated, "blubbery" bass at the break-up frequency, right around 45 hz or so. It is easily overlooked, but once you recognize the sound, it is hard to completely ignore. My Devore O/93's don't disappear in the room as well as the Adagios, but they don't break up in the low bass. They are solid as a rock. Not that they go down to 20hz or shake the rafters but they stay true to form with taut bass. There is no discernible "flub". Having a 10" paper woofer from SEAS in a tuned, rear ported cabinet IMO most likely accounts for the difference. I used aftermarket outriggers with deep piercing brass spikes with the Adagios which ameliorated the problem but did not eliminate it. I spent untold hours getting the positioning just right with the Adagios. With the Devores, all you need to do is place them with their integral little wood block feet and play around for maybe an hour with positioning and the sound is glorious. At least in my room with my gear.
I’m fascinated by the diversity of designs and opinions among speaker designers and audiophiles as well!
It seems to me there are a lot of variables going on here.
First is that both designers and audiophiles come to audio with differing criteria. Some are most focused on, for instance, strict accuracy to the source, reproducing the electrical signal as accurately as possible. Others are more concerned with accuracy to "The Absolute Sound, " in terms of being able to reproduce a sense of reality, and if it takes a bit of fiddling from strict neutrality from the signal to get there, so be it. Others may be more in the "I just want it to sound good" camp, who aren’t demanding strict objective accuracy, who think that The Absolute Sound is a pipe dream, but just hold the criteria of ending up with "sound that satisfies me." Or "does it communicate music in a way that moves me?"
And then there’s the fact that even when you have people generally in one camp as to their criteria, within that camp there will be variations in which compromises are acceptable, which elements most important. So in the "Absolute Sound" and "As I Like It" camps, some may focus on timbral accuracy, others on soundstaging, others on dynamics, etc, so you’ll still end up with different designs. Even those trying to reproduce strict neutrality, accurate reproduction of the source, will have to contend with debates over whether to design the speaker to output a perfectly ’neutral’ flat signal, or how much to take the likely room effects, or even our hearing, in to the design, so it all sums to neutral at our ears. So there are different ways people design speakers to be "neutral" in that regard.
And THEN of course we have the subjectivity of the listener. Especially in the Absolute Sound/As I Like It camps, our hearing may be slightly different, our perception different, or we may even simply of our own preferences zero in on one aspect of the sound we like, where someone else will notice the aspects they don’t like.
I find it fascinating when I sit in front of some systems with a fellow audiophile and they are really happy with what they are hearing, but for me I am nonplussed and would be just as happy with that system turned off (or happier). They may be hearing great clarity and imaging, I’m hearing a bleached tone that leaves me completely unmoved.
So with different approaches, and of course everything in between, naturally we end up with a variety of design ideas, which satisfy varying criteria of audiophiles, naturally we end up with tons of different designs and preferences.
On a similar note:
I often agitate for a more rigorous, science-like approach to high end audio (for products that are essentially engineering problems, way too much of it seems to operate at the level of, say, alternative medicine). And I certainly would love to see more high end audio equipment produced via more reliable testing/vetting methods, with objective support for claims etc.
BUT...that’s not to say I also don’t quite enjoy some of the Wild West aspect of high end audio, where you have designers trying out all sorts of wild ideas. I’ve certainly heard products whose marketing comes with really dubious design claims, but which sounded really impressive and fascinating nonetheless.
And I’m very glad that there isn’t the homogeneity in high end audio design that is suggested by the attitude of some posters - or manufacturers for that matter who become fixated on "designs ought to be THIS way and NOT that way!" e.g. People who will say things like you should never use X cone materials, or never allow any resonance in the cabinet, or never go with X, Y crossovers, never combine X, Y drivers, etc. A certain single-mindedness and hard-headedness in pursuing a certain design goal can really work for a speaker designer. But in the wider scheme of things, we want people exploring various approaches.
Thanks goodness we have designers trying different approaches. The recent example from my own experience I keep using are the Devore O series speakers. They have been criticized by the neutrality camp for doing everything wrong - "you never combine a tweeter with a 10" driver like that, the beaming! The mismatch, you’ll loose coherence! You don’t let a cabinet sing like that. It’s all just so wrong, any DIYer can even tell you that!"
But when I auditioned them several times against a bunch of more "neutral" speakers, sure some of the defects were likely there in the mix, but not remotely to the overriding audibility the nay-sayers make you fear, and to my ears they were doing SOMETHING really wonderful that most of the other speakers weren’t. (A certain combination of organic tone and body to the sound).
I also like neutral speakers too (as I’ve owned a number of them). But I’m very glad we have other choices!
@mapman , interesting point. Clothes have a function to keep us warm, cover us up, make us look better, define which tribe we belong to etc
Loudspeakers should be attempting to reproduce the recording as accurately as possible. Preferably having as little / zero character of their own. In a perfect world you would have a believable field of sound existing entirely free from it’s source. Should they be a matter of taste?
@fsonicsmith , when I found out that K320s used a ribbon tweeter and were a transmission line design I was surprised. I then began to listen hard for any dispersion anomalies that I had read about with ribbons, I couldn’t hear any. I was also listening out for any hint of sibilance/crossover distortion (hate it) and there was only the mildest amount on Peggy Lee’s Fever. Probably the cleanest treble I have heard on any loudspeaker. It didn’t have the explosive dynamics of the Vivid Kaya 90s, but those were almost scary at volume.
I had to return to the room at the end if the show just to check if I hadn’t imagined it all. They sounded exactly the same, even after I had heard several other designs in between.
If I had the space I would get a pair in white immediately, (hopefully they come with a grille) but my circumstances probably mean selling my current speakers (which are far more childproof) first.
As good as the various designs were there was only one loudspeaker there that left me unable to find any fault sonically, and that was the Kerr Acoustic K320 (https://www.kerracoustic.com/k320)
Interesting; other than having a single mid-woofer instead of two in a D'Appolito configuration, this speaker is very similar to the Acoustic Zen Adagio which admittedly, is something of a classic performance-to-price bargain.
It is not strange that after over a century of development that there is still no consensus amongst audiophiles as to which loudspeakers provide the greatest fidelity to the signal. Heck, some still believe nothing beats the wax cylinder for reproduction of the human voice.
What is surprising is the sheer diversity of designs, techniques and technologies. What began as a simple horn soon developed into the moving coil system followed by the electrostatic principle. Yet at each phase the new technology merely complimented the previous one rather than replace it.
For example we see moving coil drivers alongside BMR units alongside ribbon units and even plasma ones for treble.
We might see beryllium, polypropylene, radial, paper (doped/undoped), kevlar, aluminium, graphene etc all tried as cone materials amongst others such as hemp.
Then we come to the cabinets where we might find ultra rigid versus lossy designs, damped versus undamped, sealed box versus ported or transmission line designs. Sometimes there is no box at all as in open baffle or electrostatics.
Cabinet materials might include MDF, Baltic Birch Plywood, aluminium, bamboo, or some form of composite design materials.
Even the number of drive units can vary anywhere from just one to over a dozen. All this diversity begs the question of whether we are actually making any progress or are simply going around in circles?
After all this time there's still so little that is commonly accepted and agreed upon by designers and loudspeakers still remain by far the weakest link in the audio chain as far as measurable distortion goes.
So the choice of loudspeaker might therefore remain a choice of taste rather than a matter of one design being superior to another. Especially once cabinet effects and artefacts have been substantially reduced as we are beginning to now see even in relative budget designs such as the Q Acoustics Concept series.
As far as the search for timbre / instrumental colour goes there doesn't seem to be any consensus there either other than it probably depends upon primarily the drive unit material itself. And it's kind of reassuring that paper is still employed in many high end designs.
After weeks of waiting I finally got to visit The UK Audio Show 2018 (Woodland Grange, UK) at the weekend. They had some impressive speakers there including the curvy, strokeable Vivid Kaya 90 - amazing dynamics, scale, imagery and dare I say it, the merest hint of metallic tinged timbre? There were many other designs such as the organic sounding large bookshelf Audio Notes (AN-K) and some small bookshelves in the Malvern Research Audio room filling the room with Abbey Road via vinyl/tubes which begged the question - where have you hidden the subwoofer? The Arcadis EB2s sounded impressive and clean but a touch thin until I sat sightly further back. Then the sound became satisfyingly well balanced.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable show with plenty of tea and coffee stations close to hand. Many of the dealers and designers were willing to take requests to escape the usual tinkly piano Jazz. So we got to hear the Beatles (Norwegian Wood, Girl), Beethoven (piano), Donovan (Sand and Foam), Steely Dan (Babylon Sisters), Diana Krall (Temptation), Peggy Lee (Fever), Dire Straits (You and Your Friend) amongst others. Sources included vinyl, CD, and quite a lot of streaming via phone. All of them sounded good, with vinyl often sounding close to CD, clean with very low surface noise.
As good as the various designs were there was only one loudspeaker there that left me unable to find any fault sonically, and that was the Kerr Acoustic K320 (https://www.kerracoustic.com/k320)
Presented in a garish blue firing down a fair sized room, about 10 x 5m with a large window behind them, it was simply delightful in the way they played different genres of music - with all the tonal/timbral colour intact. They remained engaging and surefooted throughout the entire frequency range at both high and low volume, and had probably the cleanest treble I have ever heard from any loudspeaker.
Just a beautifully attractive colourful sound. Easily the best in show for me, and that included it's bigger brother the K100 which I felt was reference quality impressive in scale and dynamics (reminding me of the Naim Ovator 6000) but altogether more monochromatic than the always enjoyable K320s.
In fact I can't say I have ever heard a better sounding or more enjoyable loudspeaker at any show, and that includes Avantgarde Trio's and the similar sounding ProAc Future Ones.
@duckworp I am a Fanboy of good engineering. Unfortunately, in our hobby, and particularly high-end loudspeakers, they are hard to come by.
BTW, I travel a lot to Europe, and I am familiar with the foreign audio press. Don’t kid yourself; they are just as “colored” as the one in the US; try to find a bad review of a high-end German product in a German magazine, or a UK made one in a UK magazine, good luck ;)
pulp and paper cones are outstanding - beautifully damped, stiff and light weight. They must not be driven in to breakup - so the operating bandwidth is less than more rigid cones. Provided the designer operates the cone within its ideal operating bandwidth then paper/pulp cones can be world class and as good as anything else....
@Sciencecop - your posts often contain a confrontational tone, frequently belittling anyone who doesn’t love Magicos above all else. Take a breath and relax. You are a Magico Fanboy, we get it. I’m a Boenicke Fanboy and proud to admit it and don’t know or care what the measurements say or the science says, I just use my ears. And to my ears Harbeth and Boenicke and the ProAc K6 all sound better for my home-listening tastes than the Magicos I have heard (A3, S1 ii, S3 ii, M3).
If you can find a dealer you should have a listen to the Gauder Akustik Darc series. These German speakers were launched at the Munich hi-end show in May and sounded a lot like a Magico. Not surprising given they are built with a sealed and ribbed Aluminium cabinet, so I guess they were inspired by the success and sound of the Magico. With the diamond tweeter option used at the show they were very impressive - they had the essence of the Magico - the complete transparency and detailed resolution which is always impressive, but they sounded slightly different too...better maybe? Still not to my home-listening taste but impressive nevertheless. The top German hi-end hifi mag gave them a 100% rating which is something they have only ever given to half a dozen or so other hifi components ever (German hifi mags seem a lot more honest than the UK and US magazines which seem to just praise absolutely everything they review, whereas the German mags are often critical of the products they review). https://www.gauderakustik.com/index.php/en/loudspeaker/darc-en
I have to say, if you mean truth of timbre, or closer to real sounding in the mids, the new Revel f 228 be is outstanding. Check out the technology and measured response of these speakers, truly impressive. The best I have had in my home, and will put far more expensive speakers to shame. They are something special when set up properly.
My original Legacy Focus speakers use cheap paper woofers (3 per speaker) and kevlar mid-ranges (2 per speaker). Legacy upgraded the cones and doubled the magnets in these speakers as Focus HD and SE. Neither of the two newer speakers sound as musical as my old fashion, cheap cone material speakers. How much better would my Focus speakers sound with Harbeth cone drivers? Apparently, a lot better. But to date, my Focus speakers are overall more enjoyable than Harbeth 40.2s I've heard four or five times (sounding very nice too).
That is why the cones should be sandwiched, creating a constrained layer damping mechanism. See Magico and Zellaton. Focal does that as well, but uses fiberglass, somewhat less effective. Magico uses 3" and 5" voice coil, btw.
Yes aluminium and ceramic are nearly perfectly rigid and pistonic but they Rrriiiiinnnnnnggggg like a bell and are terrible materials for driver cones. The Rrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg is what I hear from these designs. Terrible waterfall plots in most cases. Magnesium is better. CF is pretty good. What Richard uses will also be good - carbon fiber and balsa - both these materials will dissipate internal energy.
The second video on the page I linked above shows that the Harbeth radial cone supports a 4.5 Kg weight - this is pretty good rigidity!!
A good driver balances rigidity with intrinsic internal damping. The use of a large diameter voice coil can also make a huge difference instead of the typical 1 or 1 1/2 inch consumer audio woofer voice coil (which offers little support to the diaphragm and places a lot of stress at the apex of the cone)
It is neither rigid, (nor pistonic), if compared to CF, aluminum, or ceramic cones, all you have to do is touch one (You can actually see that in the measurements as well, if you know what to look for). I have seen a dealer stand on a Magico 6" cone, that is rigid.
The radial cone in Harbeth speakers is quite rigid or pistonic.
Richard should not use a 4.5 inch cone at 5 KHz - it will beam severely. But the idea of pistonic is good provided the material is intrinsically damped.
Watch the two videos on this page if you want to learn the difference between vacuum formed polypropylene and Harbeth injection molding.
Alan Shaw clearly has put a lot of effort into that mid range cone. It is superior to the large majority of designs. Like the ATC mid range - Harbeth have rightly acquired a reputation for excellent mid range quality.
@prof Looks like you were on the debate team at school right? I have an allergic reaction to these circular debating techniques that lead nowhere since the debater has a very shallow understanding of the subject he was just asked to debate. It is too bad, you should have taken some science classes instead, this could have been a much more interesting discussion, and at the end, you could actually have better sound as well.
No evidence from you the parts selection reduced resolution in the Harbeth speaker.
none pistonic jello cones,
Assertion, with no evidence, while there is evidence against your assertion. "Jello" cones would hardly provide the linearity and excellent spectral decay characteristics measured in Harbeth’s Radial Cone driver. This doesn’t help anyone take your claims seriously.
no coherent signal above 12K,
Atkinsons measurements show interference around there. But it’s not like the signal stops there. Plus:
1. Most of the audible spectrum is below that, and even if the speaker didn’t even produce sound above 12K (which it obviously does with a super tweeter), that does not entail it would be "low resolution" within it’s frequency range, which covers most of the musically relevant range.
But more important:
2. You have been given more than one set of measurements for the Harbeth speaker. The measurements I linked to from the Newport Audio Labs show measurements quite inconvenient for your characterizations. Again, there are both the measurements to observe, with these comments from the tester:
"It’s important to first note the extension and linearity of the Harbeth Super HL5plus’s response, as measured by Newport Test Labs, because it extends from 45Hz to 40kHz ±3dB—extension and linearity that are, in my memory, unprecedented. "
This contradicts your claim the Harbeth SuperHL5 Plus has "no coherent signal above 12K.
Does that single measurement (of a different Harbeth speaker), that node, warrant the conclusion that the Harbeth design is "low resolution?"
That would seem quite an incautious stretch for someone who is supposed to be waving the flag for a scientific approach to these things. We’d want to know the actual effects in terms of audibility in the overall audio signal produced by the speaker, while not dismissing other excellent areas of performance, before such a conclusion, right?
You said you can find much better driver design from Focal at similar price, but Focal don’t seem above putting out expensive monitors that have similar distortion in that region, e.g. here:
So it isn’t good enough to simply point to any particular advantage or seeming disadvantage of single parts; it’s about how everything is implemented in the final design.
And the final design of the Harbeth SuperHL5plus seems to be lauded quite highly in the comments and measurement sections in the reviews I’ve provided.
If it makes you feel better, I am willing to let go of the 50% mark; you seemed to be stuck on that. After all, I actually didn’t say that
No, but you entered the thread in support of mheinze’s comments. And you’ve tried to uphold the idea the Harbeth speakers deserve to be described as low resolution. (Mostly as a way to take jibes at me, quite obviously).
I’ve never once said that no other speaker design, or drivers, are not capable of higher resolution than Harbeth. But that higher resolution exists, doesn’t entail Harbeth are "low resolution." I have ONLY objected that mheinze’s comments exaggerate, to a silly degree and to a point that mischaracterizes Harbeths, when he says things like "low resolution/only 50% resolution."
Is it so hard to admit his comments go a bit far?
If he wants to make the case some other speakers are even higher resolution than the Harbeths...sure...why not? But there’s no reason that has to come with a misleading level of characterization of the Harbeth design.
I doubt we need to go beyond this point, so Cheerio!
There are many philosophies or approaches to what one considers natural or perfect or even rich sound. Which ever components one uses to achieve that end goal. (cables, cartridge, ect.) as eternal as the quest might be are we ever satisfied? Isn't the search part of the fun? (tweeking, experimenting listening evaluating)
So if cheap parts, none pistonic jello cones, no coherent signal above 12K, a cabinet that produces noise that accounts for a significant portion of the overall output do not reduces resolution, what does?
If it makes you feel better, I am willing to let go of the 50% mark; you seemed to be stuck on that. After all, I actually didn’t say that but hey, could be more, who knows, you want to define resolution now??
Today, you can have a pistonic cone that will be well damped and will outperform anything Harbeth’s cone material is doing.
So you claim.
Where are the measurements showing Harbeth’s specific driver design results in "low resolution?’"
Agreed the tweeter crossover gets messy at 12K, but does THAT entail the overall design is "low resolution?" That’s the case you are supposed to be making, remember? Most of the measurements don’t support that claim and as Atkinson says right after noting the tweeter interference: "However, below the top octave, the HL5plus’s response is superbly even." It’s the radial driver that covers most of the audible spectrum, and it seems to perform very well...which you are studiously ignoring. You CLAIM that driver shouldn’t perform well, but we have MEASUREMENTS in support that it DOES work well and is low in coloration.
And note that if you look at something like the Focal Sopra with the type of drivers you laud, it’s got a hashier spectral decay than the Harbeth speaker.
Did you see the parts quality of the XO? The cheap magnets on the drivers,
And the evidence this results in a speaker design that is "low resolution?" Strange how you keep making assertions that fall well short of actually supporting this claim.
As to the lively cabinet, while Atkinson remarked that the resonant mode at 150Hz *may* be audible he said of the cabinet resonances:
"This suggests that the idea of using a thin-walled cabinet to maximize the quality of a speaker’s midrange reproduction —proposed by, among others, Harbeth founder Dudley Harwood when he worked at the BBC in the early 1970s—does work as promised. "
Once again, this debate has been over the claim that Harbeth speakers are "low resolution" and/or only give "50%" resolution.
You have not supported those claims, only made some assertions you haven’t backed up. Where I have owned the speaker in question, compared them to other designs, and I’ve pointed to reviewer listening tests and measurements indicating the Harbeth has overall low coloration, ESPECIALLY within the range of it’s Radial driver which you attempt to denounce, and that the speaker has superb sonic qualities.
Oh...and of course you have conveniently ignored the measurements and comments from the other review I posted, which suggest the high quality engineering of the Harbeth speaker.
That, and comments like these:
To look at something like that and have the nerves to say that it performs better then, just about anything I can think of, not to mention the Magicos, is a sad jock,
...show you do not debate these issues in good faith. That’s a strawman.
I have not claimed that the Harbeths perform "better" than Magicos, either in measurements or overall sound quality. (I'd give some areas to Magico, some to Harbeth. As I said, to my ears vocals in particular sounded more "right" and believable on the Harbeths).
I have merely been saying that claiming the Harbeth speakers are "low resolution" transducers, especially that they only produce "50%" of the resolution, are to say the least, exaggerated.
You’ve done nothing to actually show the Harbeth design fits such a description. Snide remarks about the speaker designer don’t actually accomplish that, I’m afraid.
How about 47%, would that be better ;) If you are going to continue and quote the SP review, I would have to question your own ability to reason, but I will try one more time. Today, you can have a pistonic cone that will be well damped and will outperform anything Harbeth’s cone material is doing. There are no reasons to use a polypropylene cone anymore (maybe cost - but you can find much better drivers on a similar priced Focals etc). How about putting two tweeters (covering the same frq??!) one on top of the other? Look at the measurements, a complete mess above 12KHz, due to phase discrepancy between the tweeters, or breakup (even JA said something about that - forgetting that these measurements are "beyond reproach"). Did you see the parts quality of the XO? The cheap magnets on the drivers, and what about the enclosure, my god, it produces so much noise, it is like having another speaker within the speaker playing uncontrollable signals at all time. I am very sorry, it is clear that Allan Show didn’t leave his basement for 40 years. If this was any other product that objectively needed to perform, he would be out of business a long time ago. To look at something like that and have the nerves to say that it performs better then, just about anything I can think of, not to mention the Magicos, is a sad jock, which, sometimes, is what this hobby is :(
You are being evasive, not "educational" which suggests "education" isn’t your actual motivation in responding to my posts.
Of course, nothing in what I’ve posted abandons "real science." That’s just a flip remark to try to make yourself feel superior without bothering to justify that claim.
As I said, I’m well aware...like pretty much anyone who has followed high end audio...that speaker designers have long understood the benefits of pistonic behaviour in drivers. Simply repeating, even after I pointed that out, that you think you are "enlightening" me on this idea is simply ignoring my reply to continue subtle chest-puffing on your part.
You’ve simply evaded the actual points I’ve raised. I have objected to mheinze’s over-board claims that Harbeth speakers are "low resolution" designs and only give "50%" resolution (talk about claims pulled out of one’s arse).
Pretty much all drivers have compromises of one sort or another, which is why various types are used by manufacturers, and debated among the DIY speaker crowd.
But we are talking about claims made against a SPECIFIC speaker company, Harbeth.
Every speaker designer chooses a driver for the characteristics that are desirable for their goal, while minimizing the flaws. Harbeth claims to have spent many years and lots of money to minimize the flaws of a polypropylene driver, increasing stiffness and pistonic behaviour, while maintaining the desirable characteristics, all with the goal of a low coloration speaker design.
Now, if YOU claim, along with mheinze that Harbeth has FAILED in that design goal, and that Harbeth speakers are in fact "low resolution" speakers or only produce "50%" resolution, then you need to show this, rather than post links to the performance of some other unnamed speaker manufacturer’s paper cone, as if THAT demonstrated your case.
For my part, I’ve actually supplied links to actual 3rd party measurements of the Harbeth SuperHL5 plus, and despite your (unevidenced) claim about whatever bias Atkinson may have, he has supplied measurements in support of his remarks that indicate low coloration in the Radial driver in particular, and a balanced well designed speaker in general.
But while we are waiting on you supplying actual evidence against this, how about some more 3rd party evidence in support of the excellence of the Harbeth speaker design.
First impressions are always important, whether it’s people, companies or loudspeak-ers, and my first impression of the Harbeth Super HL5plus was that its sound was amaz-ingly cohesive and stunningly real, very similar to what I hear from full-range designs (Lowther et al) but with none of the bass or treble limitations of full-range loudspeakers. It’s so stunningly real that although I will do so for the purpose of this review, it’s as if the bass, the midrange and the treble no longer exist as separate entities that need to be described as such, but you’re instead just listening to ‘music’—music that’s been freed from the normal transitions that must take place from a bass driver to a midrange driver to a tweeter.
The clarity and detail that are delivered across almost the entire spectrum in which musical instrument fundamentals occur is stunningly good.
From the measurements section:
Harbeth’s Super HL5plus proved to have an extremely smooth and superbly extended frequency response, characterised by a very slight spectral tilt that saw the bass/midrange region very slightly elevated compared to the output at higher frequencies. You can see the evidence of this in Graph 1, which shows the averaged frequency response using pink noise as a test stimulus. It’s important to first note the extension and linearity of the Harbeth Super HL5plus’s response, as measured by Newport Test Labs, because it extends from 45Hz to 40kHz ±3dB—EXTENSION AND LINEARITY THAT ARE, IN MY MEMORY, UNPRECEDENTED.
Be-tween 80Hz and 10kHz the response is within ±1.25dB which is, yet again, a superb result.
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To reiterate what I said in the introduction, the extension and linearity of the Harbeth Super HL5plus’s frequency response is in my memory, unprecedented. I’ve seen speakers with better low-frequency extension, speakers with better high-frequency extension, and speakers with greater overall linearity. But the Harbeth Super HL5plus is the first speaker I’ve seen that has been able to deliver all three of these very desirable attributes in the one package. Equally important, it’s done it with a design that’s an easy load for any amplifier to drive and using a cabinet whose dimensions are not even close to being visually intimidating. I’m not sure who to congratulate for this marvellous achievement, the BBC, Dudley Harwood or Alan Shaw... or all three. But whoever was responsible—individually or collectively—congratulations are most certainly due, and even more certainly very well-deserved.
So now I have presented links to two reviews of a speaker FROM THE ACTUAL SPEAKER COMPANY UNDER DEBATE where both listening impressions AND THE MEASUREMENTS indicate a low coloration, faithful presentation of the signal.
So how about, instead of just trying to knock me down a notch, you actually address the points I’ve actually made.
If YOU are claiming to have a scientific case against what I’ve written, show us how those Harbeth speakers in fact produce "low resolution/50% resolution," where the measurements seem to suggest excellent engineering.
Support your claim that I have refused to embrace "real science."
Show how my objections to mheinze’s remarks that Harbeth speakers only produce "50%" resolution, or are low resolution, are unreasonable.
I was hoping that the very simple explanation of why a speaker cone should be pistonic will enlighten you (this has nothing to do with Vandersteen, he just happened to explain it well). These are all very basic concept of physics, but you have to embrace real science first, which I now understand you are not willing (or capable) of doing.
BTW, "POLYPROPYLENE" cones are actually much worse, i.e less pistonic, then harden "PAPER CONE", which is what typically is used in today drivers.
So in response to my post, you are giving a link to one speaker manufacturer’s claims for "why our design is better?????"
As if that weren’t standard for pretty much every manufacturer/speaker designer to claim?
That’s a classic bit of advertisement of the type that can be found by most speaker manufacturers. You have the Vandersteen cone pitted against some selected "unnamed" paper cone, and oh-my-gosh, can you believe it? Look how bad the selected-unnamed-cone compares to OUR cone?
And, as if Vandersteen were the only speaker manufacturer that recognizes the desire for an evenly pistonic cone material????
Of course speaker manufacturers recognize the relevance, that’s why so many brag about the pistonic behaviour of their speaker drivers! Including Harbeth who make a big deal about precisely this engineering goal for their Radial driver. This idea is hardly a revelation.
And why are you posting a comparison between a Vandersteen driver and an unnamed PAPER CONE driver, as if it made mheinze’s point, when the Harbeth speakers use a POLYPROPYLENE cone of their own polymer design, specifically engineered toward attaining lower coloration through highly pistonic behaviour????
And the Stereophile measurements indicate that the Harbeth Radial driver is indeed low in coloration.
And you think all this "correlates perfectly" with the claims I’m objecting to like Harbeth speakers only producing "50% of the resolution?"
Do you want to point us towards measurements showing Harbeth speakers are only giving "50%" of the resolution of the audio signal vs Magico?..or do you think promotional videos from one speaker company comparing their driver to unnamed paper drivers actually make this case? If so, you’ve got a wonky idea of evidence and argument.
Nowhere am I claiming that Harbeth speakers are the best designs. I've been objecting to the over-board claims that they are "low resolution" and even sillier, only give "50%" of the resolution. Speaker design is about balancing compromises, and most speaker drivers/designs balance various compromises. The trick is how it all comes out in the mix, and the Harbeth design seems to have balanced these engineering problems quite well.
For someone who puts so much time in to this hobby (or at least writing about it), some education may go a long way; you should give it a try, your long posts will be much more interesting and relevant.
Oh, please.
Should you post something of greater relevance, that actually undermines anything I’ve written, then I’ll heed your gracious advice.
It will explain to you some facts; they correlates perfectly with what mheinze is trying to say (Unfortunately, JA can not be trusted when it comes to UK made loudspeakers, read the comments on his ridicules conclusion, they are much more in line with reality).
For someone who puts so much time in to this hobby (or at least writing about it), some education may go a long way; you should give it a try, your long posts will be much more interesting and relevant.
The tube cult is a relatively small club compared to the rest but has a strong presence here. That’s probably why you hear more in general here about products that are popular with tube gear. Where as Magico is nice and sounds very good but expensive and lots of competition so does not get as much universal accolades, even if perhaps they might be deserved. The build quality of Magico’s I have seen and heard is top notch. So is the sound but hey there are so many other top notch sounds I hear also often for much lower cost. BTW I have auditioned and know Magico’s sound very good with very good higher powered tube gear to match but few may afford or even want to have to deal with that kind of combo even if they can afford it. Big tube amps use lots of power, throw off a lot of heat, and are harder and more costly to maintain. High TCO. Not for everyone. Smaller tube amps with higher efficiency, easy to drive speakers (not nearly as many out there to choose from) is way more practical for many. So you hear a lot about the likes of Tekton and others. Of course full range high efficiency speakers tend to be bigger and bulkier than most so no panacea there either.
Harbeth they are too warm, with very bad resolution
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If you are confronted, and willing to accept the fact that what you like is only 50% of the resolution (Harbeth speakers)
^^ File this under "Audiophiles say the darnedest things!"
You may not like Harbeth speakers, but I suggest you not go from there to making silly comments like the above.
You have your experience of course and have every right to decide which speakers sound best to you. But you are taking your opinion into making objective claims about resolution. You aren’t in a unique exalted position in deciding among speakers; many of us here have long experience playing instruments, lots of exposure to acoustic instruments and other "real" sounds (everyone knows what a real person sounds like), and many of us are just as interested in understanding the difference between real and reproduced sound.
Harbeth speakers have been highly reviewed as having exceptionally accurate timbre for voices and instruments by reviewers well familiar with other high resolution systems. A great many audiophiles have agreed.
I have previously owned the Harbeth Super HL5plus and recently completed a several-years-long audition of many top contender speakers (including Paradigm Persona, Audio Physic, Joseph Audio, Focal, Raidho, Revel, Magico A3, etc). The Harbeth speakers held up quite well and showed plenty of detail and resolution.
As everyone knows, reproducing the human voice in a natural manner is one of the biggest challenges for any system, given how familiar we are with the sounds of real voices. Harbeth is renowned for the natural sounding reproduction of the human voice. And indeed, in my auditions where I specifically check this aspect out, between the Magico and the Harbeth speakers, voices tended to sound more realistic, natural and organically believable on the Harbeth speakers, to my ears.
The ridiculous claims about Harbeth being low resolution speakers, or having "50%" resolution are unfounded opinion. Harbeth has been just as fanatical about developing their radial driver, in terms of reducing coloration, as pretty much any other manufacturer attempting realistic sound reproduction, which is why they have some renown in the audiophile world. And the measurements support the high level of performance, as can be seen in the Stereophile review:
AD commented that "the Harbeth Super HL5plus sounded conspicuously, even startlingly, clear." It came as no surprise, therefore, to see that the Harbeth’s cumulative spectral-decay plot (fig.8) demonstrated a superbly clean decay throughout the midrange and treble. Harbeth’s RADIAL2 material does indeed result in a well-behaved woofer cone.
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Other than that lively enclosure, which is a deliberate design decision—note AD’s comment about "the consistently truthful, present manner with which they reproduce singing voices"—THE Harbeth Super HL5plus’s MEASURED PERFORMANCE IS BEYOND REPROACH.
So if I’m looking at evidence for a claim, I can see the great amount of praise Harbeth has garnered among reviewers and many audiophiles for sonic excellence and truth of timbre. I can note my own experience actually owning Harbeth speakers and being able to compare them to a broad range of speakers I’ve owned and audiotioned. And measurements support that they are a high resolution speaker via excellent engineering.
Or...I can take the comment from a forum audiophile that Harbeths only give you "50% resolution."
Although my wife liked all the Harbeths she heard, I can appreciate their sound but would not own them. My old Legacy Focus have superior dynamic range, bass, highs coupled with a more neutral sound. The vonSchweikert and Lumenwhite speakers are even more neutral. The Magico speakers (I haven't heard the A3) are extremely neutral but that is not the problem when I've heard them which I mentioned previously.
As for the WIlson's, the smaller ones sounded very nice and the newer models are their best sounding. Older Wilson's=worse sound, especially their Max speakers of 20 to 30 years ago.
The other point I made was that I prefer efficient rather than inefficient speakers. jones4music points out that the Magicos and Wilsons sound best with huge monoblocks. That's not what I want to use to drive speakers. I have 125w. tube monoblocks. I've heard Wilsons with huge VTL and Magicos with huge Solution monoblocks. So what? I still didn't like the sound. Yes, maybe they are too neutral for me. The sound did not move me as much as a cheaper 40.2 Harbeth with it's highly colored and less resolving sound (I prefer the Volti horn speakers to Harbeths for nearly half the price).
I'm glad you enjoy the Magico and Wilson speakers. They don't meet my requirements.
I am still slightly puzzled as to why Magico speakers don’t get a universal thumbs up, the way say for example DeVore do. Alon Wolf seems to be far too meticulous in his approach as to not have canvassed a wide range of opinion before unleashing his products. Speaking as someone who has never heard a pair I wonder whether it’s something to do with that aluminium cabinet or the graphene drivers?
Very good point. I think people, me included, gotten used to heavy colored sound from speakers, once it is removed, it is very unfamiliar to us. It may take some time to understand, but once you get it, there is no return. All the talk about "feeling" etc, is absolutely rubbish. It is the intellect that does the work, people need to educate themselves about what it is they are listening to. If you are confronted, and willing to accept the fact that what you like is only 50% of the resolution (Harbeth speakers), you may start to "feel" different about it.
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