What Is So Special About Harbeth?

The XD series has underdone certainly one round of price increases, perhaps two, and currently in the USA I just don't think they're price-competitive, whatever their many virtues.

The upside here is that the sweet spot in the Harbeth range was represented by the previous two generations/iterations: the Anniversary series and the non-anniversary series before that (e.g. 40.2 Anniversary, 40.2).  Pick up a gently used pair of these in whatever model you're interested in, and you get all the Harbeth magic at a much more reasonable price.  That's exactly what I did.

@ryder +1.

I think there was one typo; the 40.2 made some significant changes over the 40.1, so the regular 40.2 or anniversary 40.2 are the best places to look.

Also, just to be clear, 40.2's at least are anything but forward sounding, if anything they are a little laid back.

@jjss49 +1.

Bear in mind too that Harbeth are far from the only company constructing cabinets this way, in the classic BBC tradition.  If this isn't your cup of tea, move on.

Why this almost exclusive focus on Harbeth?

Why not take a look at Graham, Stirling and Rogers and see how they're built?

This is a well-known video relevant to the present discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3WpRY-EtX8