Current or Previous Harbeth Owners…

@freediver

 Touché

@dpac996 ,this replier continues to parrot his "opinion" in thread after thread regarding Harbeth speakers,denigrating speakers & a maker who are cherished world wide by end users & reviewers..IF the cabinets contributed so much "coloration" as he states the WHY are they so highly regarded by EVERY SINGLE professional reviewer that has put their time & effort into providing the potential buyer needed Intel?
 Also to address this "issue" I offer the following excerpt from Stereophiles M30.2Xd Anniversary review:
" the thin-wall cabinet construction advanced by the BBC type of designs is intended to minimise such resonance, by means of a layer of heavy and lossy bituminous coating on the inner surface of the panels. Just as a car's shock absorber converts spring rebound energy into heat and stops the car from continuing to bounce long after the initial bump has passed, so this damping layer absorbs and dissipates most of the energy transmitted into the cabinet wall, thus reducing the amplitude and duration of unwanted vibration.
Research carried out by the BBC back in 1976 proved that this construction method reliably put any cabinet wall 'noise' at least 30dB below the main sound output level, meaning that this coloration became inaudible. In engineering terms, that is 'job done'.
As always, there is a compromise in that vibration cannot be totally eliminated (any more than a car can have 'perfect' ride comfort!). The effect of heavy damping layers on thin timber panels is to place the remanant vibrational modes in the mid-bass 100-250 Hz range, where the worst they can do, if faintly audible, is add a modicum of 'warmth' to the sound."

@arafiq thanks, I will try a good solid state amp with the 40.3 sooner or later. Maybe a Hegel. At the moment I run a full tube system with a Mcintosh c2600 tube preamp into various tube power amps.

The Harbeth matches nicely with the MC275 and the Music Reference RM-200 which is a hybrid solid-state/tube 100 wpc.

About the lossy cabinets, I thought that this is backed by scientific data from the BBC research. This type of construction allows the cabinet to dissipate energy in a way that produces a natural and uncolored sound, especially for voice reproduction.
Voice reproduction is one of the greatest strengths of Harbeths imo.

@freediver copy that. Good excerpt. I really do love Harbeths and always wanted to try the babies in a small near field setup; I’ve discovered, however that for the overall genres of music I love, ATC SCM40 v2 have that juicy vibe and incredibly transparent midrange of the Beth’s I’ve tried, but to my ears do the music even more justice. Classical and big band scale super well and vocalists have that lit from within quality my ears 👂 adore. 🥰 cheers mates and enjoy the Holiday!

@yogiboy

“ …l @akg_ca Why would you call the thin wall design a major detriment? Many other speakers use this design including Spendor, Graham, Falcon, Stirling, etc., etc,. It’s been around for over 60 years and many enjoy BBC type speakers…”

@yogiboy

Why are you presuming that I’m knocking HARBETHs. I never said nor implied any such thing , I am assuredly not knocking “thin wall” HARBETHs or any other BBC monitor design .,,, I love my HARBETH M30.2 XD’s on TonTraeger speaker stands as defo keepers long-term, full stop. .

All I posted herein was a simple personal experiences opinion that

(a);I prefer to keep my current speakers over the many contenders and pretenders at the 30.2 price-point strata , and up to double theirpricepoint strata.Adding ahigh-end ATC subwoofer to flesh out the bottom end for these standmounts provided me me with a peer speaker system to the higher model 40,2’s.

(b) and yes ..Ive also auditioned other speaker brands (mostly at audio expos) that could sway me to change, BUT ONLY AT significant multiples ( ….plural ….) in 30.2 speaker pricepoint AND a matched significant multiple in price of upstream electronics to drive them. Intuitively unless I win a mega lottery, nuthin’ is gonna change for me,