I have Rega Brio R with the Harbeth P3ESRs and it's a pretty good combo. Like someone in this thread said, nothing wrong, just seems there could be better stuff out there. Then again, the P3s are not meant to be the most powerful speaker. But upgrading to more expensive Harbeths is not an option for me (certainly not that and upgrading the Brio at the same time).
Not to get all philosophical, but my general advice after getting into this game is, set up a realistic budget, go to a dealer you trust, and have him/her take care of you. There's dealers out there who will bad mouth everything they don't carry, and there's dealers out there who will talk with you for an hour even if they don't think you'll buy anything, and encourage you to try out stuff they don't carry. Find the latter and buy from them. At the end of the day, it just seems that all products in the same price range would be right around the same quality. But that's my untrained observation.
Not to get all philosophical, but my general advice after getting into this game is, set up a realistic budget, go to a dealer you trust, and have him/her take care of you. There's dealers out there who will bad mouth everything they don't carry, and there's dealers out there who will talk with you for an hour even if they don't think you'll buy anything, and encourage you to try out stuff they don't carry. Find the latter and buy from them. At the end of the day, it just seems that all products in the same price range would be right around the same quality. But that's my untrained observation.