Warm romantic & detailed

Hi … great thread!!! Thanks. If anyone can chime in … would the harbeth shl5 plus be in the warm and Romantic camp too? If not … how about the 30.1? 

This makes me think hard, but perhaps 6-7 years ago at RMAF I listened to large 3-way Harbeth's with superior electronics playing classical music and although not my normal diet, I was very loath to leave that room and stayed for some time. The sound was addictively beautiful and I cannot forget it.  Again, good work!

congrats. As much as I enjoy the way focal speakers present the midrange, where most of the music lives, i'm not that crazy about the bass... Been hearing lots of great things about harbeth lately. 

+1 for felt or wool around tweeter.  This will calm frequency and defraction.

Sounds like a good date.

I was lucky enough to snag one of the first pairs of Focal Sopra No2s that arrived in the U.S. and have been smitten with them ever since.

Having said that, part of the reason the highs aren't harsh is the electronics I'm driving them with, a McIntosh MC452 solid state power amp and McIntosh C2500 tube preamp.

I have heard them driven by other amps and thought they sounded "thin" and the highs were too intense for my tastes.

With my current setup I can listen to them for several hours and not tire.

The Spectral’s beat out every part of the Midrange VS the Electra’s... Of course the Electra’s dug a little deeper in the bottom end, but what an extraordinary midrange the Spectral’s have. I even had the chance to compare the Spectral’s against the Sopra 3’s, and I strongly believe the midrange in the Spectral’s bested them.

I would consider the Harbeths to sound rich, full, engulfing. The bass was like nothing I've heard before... Don't get me wrong not one specific factein on the deep end bested any top end speakers I've heard, but there was just something about it that sounded so different that I absolutely loved. After hearing one track I walked out of the room seriously thinking about what I just heard, and if my mind was jacked up from a little more caffeine than I needed. I then walked back in, played 5 or songs and honestly I never wanted to leave that room. 

Congratulations and here's hoping these make you smile for a lot of years. Good work taking your time shopping.   

i’m glad you like them I just could not believe the price when I saw them MSRP. Would you consider them to be warm and romantic? What made them life changing compared to the other great ones you heard?

Also curious how were spectral‘s compared to your other focals in terms of sound signature? Seems like the spectrals don’t get much talk in the community 

I found a few speakers in my original planned budget. Of course things evolved for me after some demo sessions, and of course recommendations. As Mentioned: the Focal Spectral's checked all the boxes I was looking for. I demo pair was selling for 7600... The Sonus Faber heritage iii really blew me away, 10k with the stands included I thought this was a great deal. But after hearing The Harbeths I felt like that was a life changing experience for MY ears. 

Initial post said he wanted to stay in 7/8k ballpark. Aren’t the harbeths 2.5x that? What is the magic in that brand, the pricing seems insane.

Tannoy - yes, but also listen to Vandersteen

Revel or Dynaudio.

Congrats!  Those are definitely get-off-the-merry-go-round speakers. If they're new, the treble and bass will break in perhaps around the 100 hour mark.

Let us know how it goes!

I did not.... 

System: Mcintosh C2600, Mcintosh 452, Furman Elite reference 20, Lumin T2, Nad Record player, Audioquest cables

Congrats Jeff!  

Did you get the walnut pair listed in Michigan?

What is the rest of your system comprised of?

op 

well done

enjoy

Congratulations!  Those are amazing speakers and I hope they give you years of enjoyment.

@jeffinnh76   I'm sure you will love those!  Enjoy.

I wanted to thank each and every one of you for the great advice. I've learned so much through this thread, and my knowledge of different brands etc etc is 10 fold what it was. 

With that said my journey has finally come to an end. I pulled the trigger on a beautiful pair of Harbeth 40.2 anniversaries.

Thank you you all. 

Oh, a last thought for now; I owned and loved my first good speaker, Martin Logan SL3s (1995) for sixteen years but for a few months the Threshold T200 (superb amp, paired correctly) cut my listening to 15-20 minutes at best. It wasn't the speaker; a better match was heaven.
Speaker so inherently bright as to be aurally fatiguing are simply not pleasurable any longer for me. I don't listen to be in pain. And if they force you to stop listening you've lost your hobby. It has to feel good, right?

When Dynaudio Sapphires replaced the SL3s as main audio speakers my thought process included finding a speaker where I would want to turn it up and not down. Part of that meant a clean smooth treble. The Esotar II worked as fabled, very nicely.

I have to second the Von Schweikert recommendation if they've only gotten better. The ones I heard in Denver years back ALL sounded very inviting but were out my my league then.

I do not think the Focal tweeter is repairable (in the way that it sounds, ha). That is the Focal house sound I have found over many, many years of hearing them. Great demo speakers. You either love it or try to get used to it.
Changing electronics to modify speaker sound when the basic sound is offensive won't work, imo. Neither will DSP. It's the house sound; love it or leave it.
There were great speakers mentioned and having owned Scansonic MB2.5s for a couple years along with Dynaudio Sapphires, I will say that the Borresen designed, sealed ribbon tweeter bested the Esotar II in sonic purity and wonderful clarity, never-ever harsh.
Joseph Audio are wonderful and pure of tone. Sonus Faber may be something well worth auditioning and I've heard many Spendors and Harbeths at shows that were superb loudspeakers and not harsh.
I'd be looking at nice models with ribbons, sealed, folded, etc, and Heil Motion type tweeters for clarity without stridency. I may be forgetting other types. But if a dome, I want silk.  (B&W Diamonds fry my ears!)  Good luck.

There are too many reply’s to check for any Von Schweikert recommendations. I had the same problem with the top end, and went through a couple of different speakers before I found my Von Schweikert VR 33’s.  Their sound is big, full, lush and romantic. Broad sound stage and good bass. Nice highs and no listening fatigue. They have quite a few different models, and cover the gamut price wise. My VR33’s were at the bottom of their price range at $3700, but have the quintessential Von Schweikert sound. Price wise they go up from there. 

Prior to my Lumin T2 the brightness / fatigue was actually worse. Prior Dac's were Topping D90, Bluesound Node 2, and if course the Dac in my mac. The Lumin takes a very long time to break in, for me 3 straight weeks of playing. 

@jeffinnh76 My room is 14’ x 26’ with 7.5’ ceilings. I had no problem with the 40.1 in my room and I know of others with comparable or smaller rooms that had success with 40.1’s. If your room is well treated, I’m confident you will be fine.

With that being said, everyone hears differently. I was almost ready to give up on my new (to me) 40.2 Anni’s for being too strident (in the same room and with the same electronics used for my 40.1’s), but I just did an overhaul of my room treatments, spending over $2K on GIK absorption and diffusion panels and now everything sounds right to me... a huge relief. To my ears the 40.1 is more romantic and warmer than the 40.2 Anni’s, but now that my room is properly treated, I’m hearing warmth AND detail in my 40.2’s that others in this chain have experienced.

As long as your room is treated properly, you can’t go wrong with either speaker.

Note:  My system pics have not been updated to show the overhaul of room treatments.   Best $2K I've spent.

Your Lumin T2 may be your problem. Had one in my system for a couple of weeks. Very detailed , but definitely can definitely get fatiguing over time. Look for a Dac with a AKM chipset or similar Sonics. You will lose a touch of detail but you will enjoy your system more 

I am very sensitive to the problem you have and one thing that I’ve settled on is NO metal dome tweeters. I do much better with soft dome tweeters or a well controlled EMIT.
That said, I just bought a pair of Dynaudio Evoke 20 speakers and I’m in love. They are smooth and very listenable. Gone is the edge that annoyed me with my previous less expensive but well reviewed speakers. While I am limited to a book shelf speaker because of room confines. They also make floor standing 30 and a Evoke 50 models. I believe the whole line has the sound that I now like but maybe you can find some reviews. The top of the line floor stander Evoke 50 is $5k a pair and the Evoke 30 about $3500 a pair. While my Evoke 20s go for $2200, the addition of a couple small T/i REL subs would go a long way toward replicating the floor standers bottom end dynamic, bringing the total investment to around $3500 or $4k depending on the sub. If I could use a floor standers I’d be hard at work justifying the purchase of a pair of 50s. I also believe they make a center channel speaker for inclusion in AV setups.

Vu of Deja Vu in Wash DC (a major Harbeth dealer) maintains the 40.2's need a minimum of 2' to the sides and really 3' behind them.  I don't have experience with 40.1's but it seems likely they might need more.  My 40.2's sound "just right" to me, neither too syrupy nor too incisive.

The Harbeth M40.2 speakers on their own , would still be considered a warm romantic speaker in the general scheme of speakers. They are a lot more room friendlier than the M40.1 version. 

40.1s i had overloaded my room so i got rid of them

shl5+ worked better for me

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back to your original post subject title - "warm romantic detailed"

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649684310-spendor-sp-91-beautiful-rosewood-pair/

these are a likely path to true satisfaction - i had sp100’s (these are the floor stander version) should never have sold them ugh - they were exactly that....

Soooooo would it be fair to say that in a well treated room I'd be fine with the 40.1's

Room size 13W x 20L (speakers on short wall) 

i would agree with other posters that older revisions of harbeths had more meaningful tonality changes - for 40.1 to 40.2 - for c7-ii to c7-iii - for super 5 to plus version - all dialed back the mid bass boominess that could overwhelm rooms and other frequencies in the range

if you had a room and a system dialed in to make the prior versions sound right, inserting the newer versions tended to lean out the sound and accentuated other frequencies, up the range especially - for a perception of greater ’transparency’ - what makes harbeths special imho is their fullness of tone married to sufficient detail/insight into the music, so it makes sense long time harbeth lovers often feel negativity towards changes in more revised models

this being said, in more recent years, with anniversary models, 40.2 to 40.3, xd versions, the change in tonal character is quite minimal... as i have said in other threads, alan shaw/harbeth seems to have adopted the ’bcg consulting’ school of product revisions... mostly for marketing schtick with price increases, get unsuspecting buyers to trade up, empty their wallets to have the ’best and latest’ for fear of missing out ... these are very marginal differences in actual performance - thus, much $ paid for little substantive value increase

They sounded pretty good playing Tusk.

I owned 40.1's for 8 years and currently own 40.2 Anni's.  The 40.1's are considerably warmer and more full bodied / organic sounding than the 40.2's.   The 40.2's are more neutral and detailed.   
If you prefer warm and romantic, go with 40.1's.   If you want detailed and exciting go with 40.2's. 

I heard the 40.2 at the New York Audio Show and they had them pulled well out into the room...literally in the middle of the room. 

@jeffinnh76  There are significant differences between the .1 and the .2/.3.  The crossover in the 40.2 was changed to make it more living-room friendly.  The 40.1 could boom in too small rooms or when not carefully positioned.  The differences between the 40.2 regular, 40.2 Anniversary, and 40.3 XD are insignificant, and have more to do with marketing than performance.  A NOS/NIB/demo 40.2 is the purchaser's sweet spot.

I've only heard the 40.2s (amazing!), so can't comment on the differences between .1, .2 and .3, but I would be surprised if they were significant.  I'd suggest checking out the Harbeth User Group - https://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/.  There may be some folks there that have heard the different versions.

Just thought I'd update all of you chaps. 

Sold my Focal's, feeling a little bittersweet about it, but time moves on.

So far I've auditioned the Focal Spectral 40th, Harbeth 40.3, Sonus Faber heritage iii.

Question: obviously there is a difference between the harbeth 40.1 / 2 and 3rs. I believe I've been told the 40.2 share pretty much the same components as the 3's. Obviously I'm not selling out  18k for a new pair of 3's, so I'm leaning towards the used market. I've found a great price on the 40.1's, but searching a little deeper and opening up my wallet a little more I could land a pair of the 40.2s... So my question is: would I regret buying the 40.1's and not going for the 40.2's?

By the way hearing the harbeth 40.3 was a life changing experience. I was also Extremely impressed with the sonus faber heritage iii, and the focal spectral 40's where also very impressive 

Have you rolled the tubes in the preamp yet? Mac uses JJs which sound great until you hear better tubes. JJs can be harsh and grainy. For line only testing, try a new Gold Lion 12AX7 in position 5 and one of these in position 6.
Also make sure position 6 has an at7 not an ax7 in place. I read a report of a factory error.

And there you have it, from Tannoy Cheviots to sheep.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheviot_sheep

Thanks for shearing this post. This is very helpful info.

@scott_w 

what kind of sponges do you use?  🤭

Cut small squares of an old t shirt, try 1 layer first, then 2 layers.
tape directly over tweeter, replace grill.Cheap tweak, and it works well.

if still harsh, use 3 layer of tshirt squares.

jeff
You should really consider listening to a 300B amplifiers with speakers that are compatible with these amplifiers. So much richness without raising the volume. Rich full bodied midrange is so important 

I'll throw my vote to whichever Tannoy model best suits your room/budget.  I've got Focals, B&Ws, Dynaudios, Klipsches, Totems, and Tannoy Stirlings, at the moment.  For me, in my room, with my equipment, the Stirlings take the prize.  I really, really like my B&Ws and Dyns, but those Tannoy drivers have got some magic to them.

Jeff ,

You are fortunate if you live near Fidelis Audio.It is a great Audio store with a really good staff of people. Would recommend spending more time there to listen to their Harbeth Line up. 

I have Harbeth M40.2 speakers and listen to mostly Rock, Hard Rock and POP music.  

For pop and rock music with Harbeth, minimum in my book is SHL5+. They are still capable of sounding dynamic with punch and slam in the bass, only with the right amps. Other good alternatives include Spendor D7 or 7.2 and Tannoy Eaton.

Never liked Focal speakers. Sound too bright and tinny at the top, lean and thin midrange. Harbeth sounds full and warm in the mids but with sufficient detail and sparkle at the top, unlike some speakers from Sonus Faber which sounded pretty much dead with muffled sound and rolled off treble.