Recommend A More Dynamic Monitor Than Harbeth C7

I went through a similar situation myself, except I was coming from a pair of Proac D2 (which may have a similar sonic signature to Harbeths, I can't say but maybe others can). A good pair of Proacs was always my "holy grail" and I finally got them, and they were better than anything else I'd ever owned. Living with them a while I noticed that they were very musical, but also warm and not entirely transparent. That sense of the music coming from a wooden box never left me. My listening room is also near-field, about 5-6 feet listening distance, and my budget was $3000 and I wanted more transparency, more clarity, a more dynamic sound.

I researched many of the same names mentioned on the thread so far - and there are some fantastic recommendations here - but ended up going in a different direction and trying a pair of used Wilson Benesch Arcs, with their steel & carbon fiber cabinets. I wanted to see what happens to the sound when you remove the wooden cabinet from the equation, and the answer is what I was looking for. In fact, I liked that effect, of removing the wooden box, so much that I then bought a pair of extruded-aluminum cabinet BMC Purevox for our larger living room (would have bought bigger Wilson Benesch but they too rarely come up used and I can't afford new). The Arcs are clear, transparent, dynamic, and very airy - very much a you're-in-the-studio-with-them or in-the-concert-hall type of sound. And there happens to be a pair available here now, pre-owned and mint, for under $3K.

Only warning is that transparency comes at a price. If you listen to a lot of '80s rock, especially badly-recorded content like so many of Pat Benatar's albums, Bryan Adams, hair-metal, etc., the Arcs don't hide or protect you from that like warmer, more colored speakers will. If all I were going to listen to forever was Bryan Adams' "Reckless" album, I'd stick with the Proacs. But on anything recorded well, the Arcs are in a different league. But there's no coloration to protect you from poorly-recorded material. Hope this helps.

I have heard the Wilson Benesch Arc many a times. Sure they have gone ahead tried new materials in order to get rid of unnecessary coloration. But then they have gone a bit too far and actually cleaned up a bit too much IMO. Some of the real musical harmonics have gone missing with that speaker. It is something thats very common with many of the current ultra clean audiophile sounding speakers.

Pani, I think you're confusing box resonance/coloration for musical harmonics, as if the box material is editing out the content of the music. IMHO, that's nonsense. Now, if you want to debate "colored" sound vs transparent sound, that's an entirely useful debate - for some people, they don't want completely transparent reproduction of a CD/LP's content. "Colored" sound can be very helpful, as I pointed out in my last post, when listening to badly recorded material. You just have to decide what you're after.

For me, all I want is the music as clean as I can get it. Saying music is too clean, for me personally, is like saying you cleaned a glass table too much - there's no such thing. It's either clean, or it isn't. But then, I also own a pair of older Sonus Faber Concertino speakers - a great example of beautiful sound reproduction, but colored in that warm SF way. Again, it's all about preference, and what makes your ears happy in that particular listening space and your chosen music.

Pani, you think we're talking dogma, I think we're talking tastes. You don't like the sound of the Arcs, and that's your personal opinion and preference, I have no issue with that. Just the same way that I think you oversell the ATC SCM 19 - it's not a recommendation I'd make to the OP for what he's looking for. But nobody is saying high quality systems can't play lo-fi recordings, or extract the "raw juice and energy" of the recording. My personal experience is simply that a bad recording is a bad recording, and a revealing, high-resolution speaker is going to give you exactly what's on the CD, for better or worse. It's not the role of any speaker to magically remove the effects of excessive compression, or change the frequency balance. You may still get, as you put it, "color, drive, and vigour", but if a recording is lousy it's lousy. It's not a fault of any brand of speaker if they can't change that. YMMV. Let the OP do his listening tests and decide for himself - it's his taste, not yours or mine, that matters in the end.

Yes, fine speakers, excellent for their price point, but I'm not comfortable saying they can outperform most $20,000 speakers. Others may feel differently, but $20K buys some pretty amazing speakers these days.