Harbeth 30.1 ? The Ultimate Speaker under $5K ?

its clear Helomech has some sort of negative bias towards harbeth. saying that Spendor, stirling, graham are all better then Harbeth seem very bold statement. to be able to claim this, one would have to have all the same type of model from every brand in the same room. he have not done this. he just like to shit on harbeth.

what I did do is compare P3esr and shl5plus with graham ls59 in my room for a few months and preferred to keep shl5plus

I also compared different spendor model vs p3esr and in every case the p3esr was better in tonality and overall performance apart from bass

For op, the shl5plus goes surprisingly deep when well placed in room, down to 30hz flat with room gain.

i dont know
i feel like theres a limit to opinions and sometime we need to compare two speakers in the same room and the preference will be much less subjective then we think.

everyone who both heard, in my room, the graham ls59 and harbeth shl5plus prefered the harbeth. all i care to say. 

helomech, im not in the least offended.

my experience with harbeth is different then yours. i dont consider myself biased because i bought the graham ls59, and the harbeth shl5plus. ive lived with both for over 6 months. i found the harbeth more natural, engaging and musical then graham. the graham also have a measurable bbc dip of about -4db between 1.7khz up to 3.8 khz. maybe what you call natural is actually a bit colored (bbc dip)?

the graham ls59 also have a weird 2-3db peak around 6khz. all my measurements were confirmed by graham. i thought the graham were great and very similar then harbeth.

im not married to harbeth but to call them the least natural is the exact opposite of my experience. i wont even talk about spendor as ive not liked one spendor speaker ive audition. even d7 was imo coloured and unnatural

what im tired of seeing from you is in every thread mentionning harbeth you come in and claim the superiority of every other bbc conpanies. your only real experience is with the c7es3. i think the c7es3 is the worst harbeth model there is. id even take p3esr plus sub over c7es3.
so you base your entire narrative about harbeth having owned only one model. seems a bit weird and dishonest.

i also find the 30.1 much less good then shl5plus. the 30.1 coloration in the bass is subtle but a bit obvious.

look at stereophile measurements of the shl5plus. its flat down to 40hz and -6db at 30hz. with room gain it easily hits 30hz when well placed.

gosta
i had jbl lsr6332. couldnt warmed to it

vintage tannoys? had tannoy berkeley, gold, ect and never would desbribe them as warm. 
im surprised you dont love atc scm150a.
maybe devore 093 could give you the warmness you want. id also been curious about audio note ane and pap open baffle speakers. imo harbeth shl5plus are great and not unforgiving or analytical.

keep us posted on your speaker tryout

@helomech, ive had lots of studio monitors such as focal cms50, amphion one18. i also use a pair of genelec 1037b for my living room and a pair of atc scm7v3 for the bedroom.

flat measurements is a good first step to good sq but far from the only criteria.

as for believing my own experience, i do. first, i believe in good procedure when testing and comparing gear: level matched AB testin: any other test have been proven to be very susceptible to bias. then using a well treated room, with the same electronics.
you clearly never did such extensive pre requisite or even went close to this to compare the graham ls59 and harbeth shl5plus. you never even heard both in the same room. yet, you go around multiple forums claiming youve heard them all bbc speaker companies and that harbeth is the worst of the bunch.

Helomech,
so having two speakers in the same room, level matched, and taking many sessions with both speakers have been proven to be wrong? right

Interesting, in 2017 you bought unheard harbeth c7es3. was it because there was no dealer around? Did you really only heard the C7es3 model, yet go on and on talking about harbeth but only heard the C7es3 and rely on Youtube videos? My experience with c7es3 was that the treble was tiny bit edgy. is that why now you say that Harbeth are bright speakers?

Where did you actually heard the Graham, they have very weak distribution. I begin to doubt the honesty of your posts