I am always surprised when folks say that Harbeth speakers don't rock. I have 30.1s driven by a Luxman integrated. They rock. 100 watts of Luxman power drive the 30.1s extremely well, and when I pull out some classic rock (The Who, Rod Stewart/Yes) they sound great. They do not have ear piercing treble shrillness, but they sound great, and I have worked hard to minimize tremble hardness. Also using the Luxman amp allowed me to stop using a sealed sub in the system. I get very nice bass in my room without going through the painful process of matching and tuning a sub to the room and speakers. The sound is more cohesive without a sub (for me, in my room, with my system and ears). Good luck on the search. There are a ton of nice speakers out there.
Harbeth 40.3's. Should I buy them?
I've owned a lot of speakers. I've just finished auditioning a pair of Alta Audio Alec's. Not good at all in my system. I own a pair of Spatial X3 open baffle speakers. I really like them and my wife doesn't. I recently bought a pair of Buchardt S400 MKII's for a second system. I say second system because I have a dedicated 2 channel room 15' x 19'. Upstairs in a much larger room, the Buchardt's were anemic, fine, 2 Adam subs solved the anemia. Then just for the heck of it (and because audio is a hobby) I moved the Buchardt monitors downstairs in the 'big guys' room. The Buchardt's loved that room and my wife loved the Buchardt's except they are to small for the listening room and our listening tastes.
I'm tired of buying and selling speakers. I've been to a hundred audio shows and have "favorites". Harbeth have always sounded great, not a show stopper, but, at shows, they've been totally inoffensive, warm and engaging in the same way I like Audio Notes AN-e.
We play all types of music. My wife especially likes classical, leaning towards female singers but too, she'll rock out on Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Keyes, Journey, you get the idea. Me, classic rock but anything that soothes my soul works. I like to play loud. My wife - louder, but not teenager loud.
We have an awesome front end to work with. Allnic T2000 30th integrated (60wpc in triode 150wpc in pentode), Allnic H5500 phono and Allnic D10000 DAC.
Why wouldn't we happy with this speaker?