Harbeth P3ESR vs the new XD

op is correct

very slight shift towards treble emphasis in xd suffix - difference is pretty minimal even in direct a-b - the fundamental goodness and character of the speaker is unchanged

alan has adopted the bain school of profit maximization for minimal added value - but he has a cash cow by the tail so may as well milk it for what it is worth - expert speaker designer expert capitalist

@helomech

agree that the older harbeths are certainly not worse sounding than the current ’updated’ ones

i think spendor and harbeth have taken their approaches quite differently --- alan shaw has fundamentally the same models for decades - little ls3/5a lineage p3, compact 7, super 5 (itself a descendant of the spendor bc1) and monitor 40... the smaller monitor 30 was added some years back -- alan just keeps rolling out anniversary models and very very incremental updates to each

spendor, otoh, has preserved their bbc heritage models in the ’classic’ line... and they have developed their modernized a and d series of floor standers, these are fundamentally new/different speakers than the bc-1 ls3/5a ls5/7 descendants -- the a and d series floor standers are newer distinct designs for audiophile 2 channel and ht markets... spendor’s speaker development output is significantly more robust...