What Is So Special About Harbeth?

UNTIL... I found the right electronics to drive them - which are the amps the designer demos them with - the Hegel amps.

I find that so amusing, as only a few years ago Alan Shaw was quoted as saying that his well fettled 1970’s transistor amplifiers were good enough for product development and that he didn’t think any worthwhile improvements would be made by upgrading. Something must have happened to clear away the fog.

Next thing he’ll be buying decent speaker cable..

However, they haven't given the same attention to reproducing electronic sounds and dynamics such as in rock music.

and it shows. While I can admire many things about Harbeth speakers I could never own a pair. I prefer ATC’s blend of compromises at the relevant price points and feel they cover more bases in terms of musical genre. In particular, I believe Harbeth trail ATC in PRAT, which Alan Shaw openly declines to recognise as a valid musical/design concept.

my Harbeth model sounds the best to my ears regardless of price. 

you are a very lucky man if that be the case

 

 

alan shaw often doesn’t do himself (nor his speaker owners) favors in how he issues goofy (usually self serving) blanket statements about amps, cables, stands and how they add/detract from the speakers’ performance... he thinks he is being ’strategic’ in wanting the focus and consumer spending power focused on the buying the best harbeth speaker, focus less on ancillaries... experienced users see through this...

i do agree that prat and speed are not harbeth’s shining strengths, though the upper models do that pretty darn well, if properly driven

atc’s are another matter, while also being an excellent british make, they present a totally different set of attributes, i still have two pair, they are leaner cleaner, utterly unforgiving and demanding of pristine source material and upstream gear... incredibly inefficient and revealing as in for true in-studio monitoring use level of clarity... they play what you feed them with all blemishes warts wrinkles right up front... some may want that type of presentation in their homes, many don’t

with the exception of ‘incredibly’ preceding inefficient, a pretty damn good exposition..

I have a pair of SCM11’s in my bedroom driven by Exposure Xxiii / 3010S2 monos and am not bothered at all by an overly analytical/clinical sound.. The Exposures make a wonderful pairing.

trouble is, some music is meant to be offensive and when it is I want to hear it, hence my preference for ATC