Harbeth HL5 vs Magnepan 1.6qr Who wins??

Maggies, I just like them better. But I do like the Harbeths a lot. I think they are expensive but very good. I actually liked the Paradigm Signatures at a dealer, compared to the Harbeth's at about 2/5 the price.

Philjolet makes an excellent point. Maggies as a speaker are relatively cheap, but if you factor in that you need very high quality amplification with them, they are proably about the same price as similarly priced speaker/amp set ups.

I've owned the 1.6's and the more juice I gave them the better they sang, no question. They would not play loudly, whichout nasty clipping on almost any tube amp I threw at them. SS and highpowered. If you go the ARC or
Bigger Rogue tube amps that's prob fine. But McIntosh and Cary really counldn't drive them. I think 300w into 4ohm is the min you can start with. Innersound ESL amp was the best I ever heard with the 1.6qr's. I took that amp to the 3.6r's when I moved up without a hitch at all.