What Is So Special About Harbeth?


SLike probably all of you, I just received notice from Audiogon of a 20% discount on Harbeth XD. I clicked on the tab and found that the sale price is about $2700. I have read so many glowing comments here about Harbeth — as if just saying the name is the password for entering aural nirvana. I admit, I haven’t listened to Harbeth speakers. But looking at these, they just look like smallish bookshelf speakers. I’m not questioning how good others say these speakers are, but HOW do they do it out of an ordinary-looking box?

Is it the wood? Is it the bracing? Is it the crossover components? Is it the cone material? What is the reason why these Harbeth’s are such gems compared to other bookshelf speakers? What is it about the construction or technology that makes these speakers a deal at $2700 on sale versus the $800, 900 or $1,000 that others normally cost? What is the secret that makes audiophiles thrill to get such a costly bargain?

bob540

to me, the stark reality of the matter is that all speakers have a sound, and of course, any speaker in a room then has even more of a sound -- this truism is absolute and unavoidable

people like to say xyz is ’accurate’ - but no one really knows what 'accurate' it is... it is subjective, not objective... it is what we hear, as what we can measure to be ’accurate’ is woefully incomplete in explaining what we hear, how we feel a sounds different than b

that said, all experienced folks in this pursuit understand that speakers by far, by far, produce the greatest distortion (i.e. variation) from input to output, than any other part of the signal chain -- even based on rudimentary measurements of frequency and phase response -- so speaker choice is naturally the most intensely personal

what we can do (and should do), though, is hear real things (human voice, piano, acoustic guitar, drum set, cymbal shimmer, bowed bass, cello) and ideally hear them in the same or a similar room, then try to remember that sound, and compare to what similar reproduced sound/music of the same sounds like, and judge how close, how truthful it is to the real thing

when done in this way, many who judge harbeths feel they do quite well, and better than most

 weakest things of harbeths are these.Far away from natural

drum set, cymbal shimmer, bowed bass

I remeber a few years back I visited an old friend of mine in Philadephia and he had a set of the largest Harbeths, a Linn Sondek deck with Vandehul cartridge and Ayre electronics from phono to preamp to power amp. It was one of the nicest systems I have heard. The evening after dinner he played everything from classical symphonies to Daft Punk to Steely Dan to Nora Jones and it was very realistic powerful and also not too sharp or edgy like many big deal hifis are.  I just remember being very impressed.

weakest things of harbeths are these.Far away from natural

drum set, cymbal shimmer, bowed bass

 

All good observations made by existing Harbeth owners and ex-owners. I agree that the Harbeth are very good in reproducing tone and timbre of instruments and human voice. In my limited experience, not many speakers do well in this area. I find voices on Harbeth to be one of the best if not the best. Some (or many) costlier high end speakers fail to match the Harbeth in reproducing voices to sound close to the real thing.

I somewhat agree with this remark made by Extravaganza, only if it’s relating to the intensity or power of the striking of drums, the dynamics of the bass or shimmer and decay or cymbals. The dynamics are slightly lacking but if we are talking about the tone and timbre of instruments such as piano, acoustic guitars, violin, trumpet etc. it’s as close to the real thing as you can get. Human voice, it’s very very good, perhaps not the best but based on my limited experience I haven’t found one that reproduces voice to sound better and more believable than the Harbeth. The M30.2 does voices the best in the Harbeth line but I was made to understand that the new C7ES3 XD now gives the 30.2 XD some competition.