People That Have Upgraded From Harbeth 30.1s....

A perspective on the quality of amplifier issue...I bought my C7s while living in England for a year. I connected them up to my roommates inexpensive Yamaha integrated amp (around 50wpc) which was connected to a equally unimpressive CD player. The room was excellent--just the right size with plenty of room to move the speakers away from walls. The ceiling had multiple angles as it was the top floor of a three story house. I was really impressed with the sound we got. Was it GREAT sound? No. But what impressed me was that even with modest electronics the Harbeth's did NOTHING terribly wrong. When I brought them back to the states after my tour was over I connected them up to my all Naim system. Did they sound better? Yes, a lot better. My takeaway is that the C7s are simply a very forgiving design, one that will deliver better performance as you upgrade the rest of your system but which will sound very good while you are finding the money to improve the upstream components. This may be one reason why Harbeth is so popular.

I can echo the experience of tobes.  I replaced 7es3 with ATC 19v2.  In my system, and based on my listening preferences, the ATCs work much better.  Which speaker is best?  That is not for me to say.

I have settled down with Harbeths. They don’t have the best dynamics and deepest bass, but overall they sound just right, musical and lovely. They don’t need great electronics too, sound good even on few hundreds $ amps. But if you pair them with something like pass labs - they will sing. I have had about two dozens of speakers from different manufactures and heard even more.

I feel like I have settled in the same place. They are tough to replace, especially considering that I have space limitations..... if I didn’t, I’d have Quad ESL57s here in a second. There’s a pair of YG Carmels posted for sale here that I almost took a chance on but my wife said they were too ugly. And that’s the thing. The Harbeths are so elegant plus they sound great so replacing them has been REALLY hard.

YG Carmels sounds like Canton - great dynamics and control, metallic trebles and rather soulless. Totally opposite to H. So if you like yours why would you go THIS way..? I would suggest to try atc.