Do Harbeth speakers really need a 4000 damping factor?

@ahal1

You are aware that Harbeth shows with Hegel, right?

I very much doubt they would choose to do so unless they perceived a significant sonic benefit. Whether Harbeths require high damping factor amplification I can’t say.

I can say that when I switched from Well Majestic integrated with damping factor of 200 to Hegel H390, my Silverline monitors "came alive" in a way I’d never heard. That was a dramatic demonstration of the importance of proper speaker/amp matching. Needless to say, YMMV. 

I read that "Harbeth likes to demo with Hegel" (and Sugden?) 

These are 2 very different sounding amps. I've never heard a Hegel I like, even with Harbeth 30's and 7C's. I haven't heard Sugden on Harbeth but I haven't heard an A21SE sound bad on anything...though I'm sure there's a few.

Membrane motion braking current (Lenz law) passes thru speaker, wire, amplifier's output and the other wire. Would adding 0,002ohm (DF=4000) instead of 0.02ohm (DF=400) to speaker impedance make it sound different (damp/brake better)?   Even if we assume 4ohm at low frequencies of 6ohm nominal impedance (1kHz) speaker, we get 4.002ohm vs 4.02ohm.  As long as DF is decent (>20) it should be fine IMHO.

I tried my 30.1's with an A21, a Class D Audio SDS 470C, and ARC 150SE - but they sounded best with my Hegel H590 - greater clarity and detail resolution.  May have been my imagination... but... that's how it seemed to me.