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Dynaudio Confidence 5 vs Harbeth

Hi All,

Looking at changing my my C5 out to the Harbeth range. For those that know the C5 it has a great mid range, in fact the overal presentaion is very good, just a hard speaker to drive. It has been compared to the temptation in the way of sound. It is a lot nicer speaker than any of the current confidence range by far.

Anyone done a side my side comparison with the C5 and the Harbeths or heard both? Would love to hear your thoughts. I can't hear the harbeths (as no distributor in my country) so I'm taking a wild guess here.

I found the Proac (Tablette Ref 8 Sig) to quite frankly sound harsh in the mids / highs compared to the C5 which were silky smooth. We are talking two diferent prices here. The Dyns cost over twice the value of the Harbeths when I brought them. So am I expecting to much from the Harbeths?

Obviously looking at improving the sound. Mainly into vocals and going to harbeth I can afford to change to a lot smaller amp. Presently using 220W of OTL to drive the Dyns and they do a great job of it (dont go past 12 o'clock) on the pre amp.

Thanks all for your input.
che13

Showing 2 responses by semi

semi
649 posts
 
as a former C5 owner, I have owned more than 1 pair of C5, I will caution your move.

I don't need to tell you about C5 strength, but I wonder if you have squeezed out the last bit of C5 strength yet. what are you using for amp? C5 are hard to drive, but if you feed them with high current amps, they sing very nicely.

I have owned some ProAc (D15 & R3.8), have heard some Harbeth, they are very different from most of Dynaudio and even further from C5. among them, I prefer C5 over others but my love for tube forced me to sell the C5. I am happier with tube + other speakers, I found C5 performance can be reproduced or better by other speakers in similar price point.
semi
649 posts
 
As unpleasant as it sounds, toetapfactor is right about fitting any quality speakers in a square room.

C5 works well close to the back wall, you might want to play with speaker placement more or go as far out as having them firing diagonally. If nothing worked, I do suggest you try Usher BE-718 which is front ported, very detail and sweet, and has very good bass for the size.
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