Why are so many people trying to sell Harbeths?

The Harbeths at CAF sounded very nice one of the few that left me wanting to come back but gotta say the cost was a shocker for a speaker of that size.

I covered the whole show in about 4-5 hours on Saturday so could only note the rooms that caught my ear but not much extended critical listening in each.

 I popped in the larger deja vu room as well and that one did not register for me probably due to way out of any practical budget for me and not the sound I wanted to hear for that. Small rooms make it hard to demonstrate the full value of larger pricier gear for sure so not ideal for that.

The room was a nice size for the Harbeths though and I liked the sound very much.

So much competition at their price point though.

If you seek a very well made, nice looking,  good sounding product, the small size for the price point might actually be a selling point for some. I wouldn’t rule that out personally. But if you have room and WAF perhaps not an issue, then lots of competition at the Harbeth price points for sure.

Deja Vu audio in Mclean Virginia sells Harbeth. I think it was them who demoed Harbeth at last Capital Audiofest.

The line has been around a while, gets lots of praise and this is  the place to sell them to people who will appreciate them most.  

I've only heard them once, the newer monitors at CAF last year.   I liked the sound, as spot on as any at the show, and style  but pricey.   THey made my list of speakers I am interested in trying someday.

Ouch.

I have no experience with harbeth. I like the retro design aspect of them
though. Makes them stand out from the crowd these days.

They tend to be pricey. The older conventional Ohm line bears a lot of
similarity to Harbeth. Those can Still be had via ohm refurbed and updated
with modern drivers and components for a fraction of the cost. Are
any harbeths better than ohm c2 L or H for example? Those can all be
had when available for under $1000, essentially the same cost as 30+
years ago still but all updated and refurbed. Factor in inflation and these
should go for harbeth prices these days. Made in Brooklyn though not
merry old England.

"you sit there and sit there waiting for the next song. 2 hours go past, your late, but you want to stay. Magic."

That's the acid test for a music lover that things are going right and no reason to muck with it further.

OHM Walsh and Harbeth are quite different. I would really love to compare fully refurbed OHM L, C2 or H to comparable Harbeth. Any of those, when availble would come in for half the price of the smallest Harbeth from what I see.

I still run my original OHM Ls from 1978 along with newer OHM Walsh, Dynaudio, and Triangle speakers, all off the same amp via in-wall wiring to various rooms. I refurbed the Ls a few years back on my own, replacing original 8" woofers with closest matching high quality Morel drivers I could find. Those alone almost cost as much as the Ls originally. I also added OHM sub bass circuit JS uses these days in all his models. That and all other parts are availble as parts in the OHM store. Low and high tweets are still original, as is crossover The Ls are big hitting speakers now that can compete with the big boys. There is just a slight upper midrange rise that is noticeable on some vocals in particular, but otherwise the sound would cost a lot more to purchase today. A full refurb done by a pro like John Strohbeen would surely smooth out the few rough edges.

I refurbed the Ls prior to buying the newer OHM Walshes. I almost decided to go with OHM Hs (my favorite all around speaker from Tech Hifi days that were too big and expensive for my college kid budget back then) and punt on the Walshes based on teh performance, but decided I would probably miss the unique OHM Walsh presentation long term, so that is where I am today with OHM F5S3, OHM 100S3, OHM L, Dynaudio COntour 1.3mkII and Triangle Titus all sharing duty in different rooms.

One last note is that these older highly regarded speaker designs all take a leap forward these days when run off modern good quality source and amplification gear, which helps put all speakers in a different league than those that were around in the largely japanese dominated receiver and integrated amplifier days of years ago when SS amplifier technology was still fairly new and often underpowered for the task at hand. Modern innovations like Class D amps help put that limitation in an amps ability to optimally drive a speaker to rest for good.