Question for Harbeth Owners

A long time and they never really open up, IMO. Never became as transparent as my 7s, just sayin'. Better lows, but not "real" lows. Beautiful sound, great vocals, but somewhat of a disappointment for me. I prefer the 7s with a sub.

I haven't heard any changes in the sound from my SHL5. I've bought them new last June and played them intensely since. The main changes I heard were with amplifier's matching. I had the chance to try them with Luxman L-505u, Sugden A21al, Nelson Pass "The Zen" and actually Luxman L-590AII.

About single wire, the owner manual suggests to connect them to the lower posts.

By the way, Merry Christmas to all!

Thanks for the feedback.. if I can save the $$ on going single wire with no penalty that would be great.. I have found in my little bit of listening that single wire on the top posts sounded better than on the bottoms.. I also found that the plates sounded really veiled.. Need more listening time but today I'll just let them play.. Merry Xmas you all :-)

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harbeths sound good right out of the box.

Ryder's information is spot-on based on my experiences.

You can expect sweeter sound.I use no name copper speaker wires,for my taste it suits the best.As for amp I would go with high quality mos-fet amps(Lfd,Accupahe,Luxman .I am using Technics Se-a3000,Su-c3000 ) As for speaker placement I prefer nearfield listening

According to the designer all amplifiers sound the same too.

I can't really say for sure how long does it take for the speakers to break-in since I've tried half a dozen amps with the speakers in the first 6 months. Nonetheless I feel the character of the speaker changes very little with extended listening sessions(with the same amp). In this sense I believe the designer's views in the break in period for Harbeth speakers may be accurate. I believe 1-2 weeks should be more than sufficient. Any apparent changes after that would probably be minimal or subtle at best.

As for biwire vs single, I think this topic was covered at length on the user forum as well. I have used both and personally there is no difference. Currently I prefer the single wire to the biwired speaker cables, but then again the single wire matches the system better than the biwired version. As for which speaker cable, that would depend on the type of sound you are looking for. Personally I would follow Harbeth's advice and recommendation on the topic of speaker cables.

That's what they say...But

According to the designer there is minimal to no break-in time...