Why do Harbeth speakers have such a cult following

did not read all the posts, so I may repeat something that's already been told.
I think Harbeths join a great timbre correctness with musical involvement. at a relatively reasonable price (compared to the crazy world of hifi, where few grams of copper may cost several grands).

Have an audio colleague that totally loves his Harbeths.
Have tried the larger 40somethings? on a variety of high end gear - nice enough/inoffensive but not involving or likely to get a foot tapping. Perhaps shone on vocals.
Led to believe they are not too fussy about the front end.
Possibly not difficult to place in a room.
For me they are well suited to those that are hard of hearing, tolerate the horrible one note bass and like the sleepy pipe and slippers sound (Possibly caused by flexible cabinetry)
Harbeths tend to be owned by those who like a valve sound/distortion.
Shows what good marketing (Bose any one?) and client service can do.

Question for Harbeth experts out there:

Are the two way models as good with vocal clarity as the 3-way models?

I heard 40.2 over the weekend with some very elaborate Conrad Johnson amplification driving them.

Vocal clarity and detail ( Donna Godchaux on the streaming Grateful Dead track "Sunrise") was the thing that struck me most. The setup had the speakers well into the room with a lot of space behind which produced an interesting sound stage from the speakers to about half way back to the wall. Not 3-d really, but pretty cleanly left to right, mostly from just behind the speakers with some things a bit more forward, nothing back near the rear wall.

Also I read and hear people talk about Harbeth and CJ adding some perhaps warmer color to the sound. Gotta say I did not hear that at all. Things were very clean, clear and neutral top to bottom IMHO, nothing offensive whatsoever that I heard, which is what I tend to look for.

I had had some exposure to Harbeth Super HL5s and 40.2 at audio shows prior, enough to peak my interest, but this was my first more in depth exposure otherwise.

It's not 2-way vs. 3-way but rather different "families" within the Harbeth line-up.  40.2 and 30.2 are essentially cut from the same cloth. Although it appears to slot in between them, the SHL5 is really the top of the line of a different family. I'm sure there are family resemblances between it and smaller speakers in the lineup, but not sure exactly which.

@twoleftears 

So in your assessment, is the 40.2 just more of the 30.2 but both are similar sound-wise?

What is it about the SHL5 that is different?

Thanks.

I've owned SHL5's (non plus version) and am on my 2nd go-around with 40.1's.    

• 40.1's... full bodied, refined, smooth, organic with a lot of "meat on the bones".  Not an exciting speaker, but one you can melt into your seat with, relax and spend hours listening to with no fatigue.
• SHL5's (in comparison to 40.1's):  neutral, fast, transparent, lacking body.  I tried using with a REL Storm subwoofer, but the integration could not come close to bringing them to the sound quality of my 40.1's.  A good clean sounding speaker, but not in the same league as the 40.1's.

@pdreher

That description jives with my 40.2 listening experience.  Very "organic".  I wish I could have stayed and listened longer.

IMO Harbeth speakers, at least the ones I have heard, are easy to listen to and dont bring about the same level of fatigue as many other speakers. However this forgiveness comes at a price which is why they are not even on my "short list" of speakers to consider. 

@jsautter

Yes, I always find it hard to land on just a single pair of speakers. I have 7 pair in 7 rooms currently. I like to hear different things. Maybe I’m always afraid I’m missing something. :^) The Ohm Walsh are still my go tos. I did think the Harbeth 40.2 brought something uniquely enjoyable to the table, which is what one would expect for the price.

Speaker lines I do not own that I would consider buying at present based on recent auditions:

Fritz
Joseph
Harbeth
mbl

Nothing yet that I would replace my big OHM 5s with yet, but the Harbeth 40.2s and mbl are the closest among those so far at least in size and overall ability. Both my Ohm 5s and harbeth 40.2 use a 12" main driver. Fritz and Joseph do seem to deliver a lot of sound out of smaller packages though.

For me Harbeth speakers walk that fine line between being overly detailed and being boring.  They seem to capture every nuance of each instrument and vocals and do a great job of separating them without distortion or glare.  They are also very dynamic with, with notes coming from seemingly nowhere instantaneously.  I wish I could put it into words better.

I've been listening to Steve Miller's Welcome to the Vault the last couple of mornings on Qobuz on my little computer system with the P3ESR SEs, which I picked up for $1400.  The cymbals, the drums, horns, vocals, guitars... everything has so much detail and with a little help from a SVS SB-12 NSD subwoofer, the bass blends perfectly.  When listening to some of the live cuts, I feel like I'm sitting in the club with Steve and the band.  All of this in a small room with wood paneling, no room treatment, the speakers stuck in corners, and me sitting at my computer, about 2 feet in front of where the speakers are.  In a good room with proper set up... 

I've heard "better" speakers, but I can't think of any that I enjoyed listening to more (including my Super HL5 Plus).

All the Harbeth fans who have posted here are correct.
Harbeths are all that.

However, and this is a big one for me - they do not rock and do not have sufficient PRAT for Rock or Pop.

@mapman 
every harbeth model can convey a sense of vocal clarity and realism because that it the mission of their BBC heritage- to reproduce voices in a clear, uncolored natural presentation.  
Of the several times listening to the 40.1 and 40.2 I felt they were extremely natural sounding even with brighter recordings.  The depth of bass from the larger woofers softens the sound somewhat.  
The brightest , clearest sound to me comes from the SHL5+ of which I own.  I just love the sound of these speakers.  
I have owned the C7ES3 as well and they also have fantastic vocal transparency with a touch more richness from cabinet warmth.
The 30.1 / 2 and the P3ESR to me sound more like the 40.2, clear yet with a warmth and treble roll off that softens the sound just a bit too much for me and my system.  
However all Harbeths can respond quite well to system changes that put the sound in a direction more to your liking including room position,  interconnect cables, speaker cables, tube changes (if you have them) etc.    
To the notion that they are not energetic enough for rock and pop I completely disagree.  System synergy in source and amplification can make them very competitive with speakers that have dynamics as their strength.  

Interesting discussion. I have a couple of comments:

1) I don’t think Harbeth speakers are popular due to effective marketing or just because Stereophile highly rated them. Anyone who has ever relied on someone else’s ear to guide them most likely had been disappointed.
2) they can’t rock. That is false. I listen to a lot of good rock, Yes, Steely Dan, Gregg Allman, Mott the Hoople and many others. They sound realistic and great. They may not add artifacts like ear bleeding treble or artificial bass, but they are extremely realistic and faithful to the recording.
3) There is no “best” speaker in and of itself. You have to take so many their things (room, personal tastes, equipment, budget..) into account

so I think we are trying to answer an unanswerable question...like how many feet is yellow.

i can say that in my room, with my tastes, a Rega vinyl front end, with Exposure electronics make my Harbeth 30.1s sing 

two last things. I have heard it said that Harbeth speakers are what people choose when they are tied to listening to speakers. That is me. And secondly, with the Rega/Exposure/Harbeth set up. I spend a whole lot more time listening to music, and not my system

Good luck on the search. That is half if the fun.

I listen to rock primarily.  Some of the other speakers I've owned did some things better than my Harbeth Super SHL5 Plus.  My Legacy Audio Focus 20/20s and Klipsch KLF-30s conveyed more sense of scale and dynamics because they were larger speakers with more drivers and greater sensitivity.  They just move more air.  If you want to fill a room with sound and really rock out, those are great speakers.  Where they lose out to the Harbeths is on clarity and neutrality.  Instruments and voices tend to get pushed together more and at those higher volumes they can start to lose cohesion and start to hurt my ears.

Now that I'm approaching 60, the kind of rock I listen to is more stuff like Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Steve Miller, etc.  I am not usually listening at high volumes, and I enjoy the nuances of hearing every instrument clearly defined and listening to the words and musicianship more than ever.  Which isn't to say that I haven't played some Iron Maiden, Tool, AC/DC, and the like through the Harbeths.  They can rock and can go loud without the harshness of many other speakers.  Having 4 subwoofers assisting them also helps make up for the smaller size of the Harbeths and gives things more of a "live" feel.  

I get that what sounds harsh to me can be appealing to many. I belong to a local music club.  On a number of occasions we've listened to a system consisting of either a Primaluna integrated or Anthem Integrated and a pair of Klipsch La Scalas.  I love Klipsch speakers, but the La Scalas hurt my ears at higher volumes.  When we cranked them up I couldn't wait for it to be over.  The other guys all loved them.  When I first heard a pair of Harbeths I fell in love with the sound and agree that there are some trade offs, but overall they do so many things right.

Certainly my favorite speakers in this line are the speaker model(s) without ports. I also favor the 2 ways due to the simpler crossovers. 

I agree that the Harbeths do as well on rock as they do other material. No speaker worthwhile does any type of music better than another. Aside from SPLs of course in which case horns are your best choice.

harbeths are more popular today than it was 3years ago.It was easier to sell them this year than 3 years ago:) 
Shl5 might lack body if they are in big free space .
If harbeths speakers are new ,they can sound bright and lean.Some people in this forum confirmed it.
Highs on shl5  sounded strained compared to dynaudio esotec and esotar or planar horns tweeters
Vocals ,dynamics were good on them,but horns speakers beat hartbeth in this area

I am constantly comparing live sound to reproduced sound - lifelong habit.  I often close my eyes and listen to voices around me just to take stock of the character of real voices, and note how they differ from reproduced voices.   I usually close my eyes in the presence of live instruments to do the same (e.g. just yesterday upon encountering a group on the street corner: drums, stand up bass, sax).  Same when I play my acoustic guitar, or piano, when my sons practice sax, trombone... 


When I do I perceive certain tonal qualities often more like tonal color.   When I close my eyes in the presence of most sound systems, they just sound wrong.  Voices, instruments may be dynamic, detailed, whatever, but the tonal "color" timbral match just isn't there.  Tends to sound artificial, steely or plastic, or just like someone has dialed the color dial a bit off on a TV.  (I also do this at audio shows - when a nicely recorded vocal is playing it can sound impressive in of itself, but if I close my eyes to directly compare it to the real voices inevitably talking nearby, the artificial nature of the reproduced voice sticks out compared to the fleshy, organic nature of real voices).

Harbeth were one of the very few speakers that survived the "closed eyes" test.  That is: eyes closed, they seemed to produce the right tonal/timbral qualities I get in the presence of real voices and instruments.   And they survive much better than many others the direct comparison to real voices.  They get something fundamentally right about voices that most speakers don't get.  IMO.  (Some Spendor speakers also do this).
I think this is how a lot of Harbeth owners feel.  That to their ears there is a particular "rightness" - where acoustic guitars, trumpets, sax, all sorts of instruments seem not just vivid, but timbrally accurate, right and natural.