Harbeth 40.3's. Should I buy them?

having been a lifelong fan and owner of numerous big spendors, harbeths and proacs over the years, i would add that having the right amplification for each is (obviously) important in extracting the best performance from each, and also knowing how each has/had been developed is useful

harbeths are less efficient, proacs typically the most efficient (the outlier response d38 an exception), and usually use multiple smaller woofers in a d'appolito configuration, spendors somewhere in the middle ... stewart tyler has historically optimized/voiced his upper proacs with medium power arc 6550c tube amps - so if you hook up solid state to proacs there is a chance they can sound a little bright

it is well known that modern harbeths have been typically developed and run at shows using hegel solid state (h360/390) and quad before that

spendors (terry miles and derek hughes earlier) use solid state mostly (quad 66 and naim power amps) in their testing and voicing.... that said, spendor classic 100’s and their predecessor s/100/sp100/r2 models are quite tube amp friendly with impedance well above 6 ohms through the range and around 89-90 dbwm efficiency

@decooney’s question and commentary points out an enduring quandary with integral floorstanders that are meant to run truly full range, versus using outboard subwoofers

we know how truly deep bass sound waves work within a listening room... our rooms have bass nodes/nulls, depending on their specific nature, and while a full range speaker like a spatial x3, a big harbeth, a big vandy, a big legacy, and so on... is designed to deliver real bass response down to 20-25 hz, say... well, that response will necessarily emanate from where the stereo speakers are placed in room ... this in effect forces the hand of the listener in setting up... where said speakers may image the best (based on their treble/midrange/midbass dispersion) may not be where the deep bass should best be delivered into the room to overcome bass nodes and nulls

such is the additional benefit of separately placed subs or sub ’swarms’, and why even ’full range’ speakers can benefit from being coupled with one or more subwoofers

Harbeths can certainly play anything you want to hear, as do any well designed full range speakers.

agree with this comment 100%

often folks who want to ’rock out’ are seeking a degree of sizzle, rasp and other forms of sonic distortion that very refined transducers simply do not add to the sound they play... unless of course, said distortion is in the music signal itself...

lots of fish in the ocean... these listeners are for whom klipsch jbl and their ilk (often with horn loaded, or otherwise underdamped drivers) are built to please

@desalvo55

unless your room is truly huge and/or you listen crazy loud, 60 push pull triode tube watts should be plenty (certainly 100+ pentode watts will be)...

mon 40’s work in the nearfield (take tom mallin’s experience with many grains of salt) but are really meant for decent sized rooms where their utter ease and big sound become magical, and the speakers can be placed away from room boundaries

that said, in my experience, the mon 40’s bring a good dose of richness and warmth to the music in and of themselves, and are best used with top flight solid state amps, as the big woofers and medium efficiency of the speakers like strong current drive and damping factor/grip for the best bass and uber clean transient attack

pass labs, hegel, classe (among other excellent solid state) are well known lovely pairings with mon 40’s

among dynamic loudspeakers, big harbeths like big spendors and big proacs, are akin to 'the girl you marry for long term happiness'... substantive, refined, all arounders for a lifetime of satisfaction, as opposed to so many modern high tech speakers that are good for cheap thrill rides but rarely pass the test of time