Are Harbeth the only warm and euphonic speakers in town ?


I've looked far and wide especially for bookshelf speakers with prominent full mids and a lush sound. So far the only name that comes up is harbeth. Maybe Sonus faber but are there other speakers that have similar tone but are made by a different company?

smodtactical

steveashe...You obviously are a Harbeth fan as am I. I'm wondering if you considered the Super HL5Plus and if you did, what made you prefer the M30.2? I recently moved to a very small apartment in D.C. and the Harbeths are completely wasted. The configuration of the apartment simply does not allow for them to give their best. I am using an old pair of Snell JIVs I had stored. As much as I hate to do it, I too will be selling my Harbeths.

Alan Shaw would probably bristle at the OP describing his Harbeth speakers as euphonic - he’s aiming for naturalness and low coloration.

Harbeth speakers certainly have smooth even response and tend to have some warmth in the lower mids/bass - The broad mids sound pretty true though. I owned 3 different models. Ultimately I sought more dynamics and liveliness. I recall one (Harbeth) retailer describing them as "sleepy".

 

 

cal91 - I did strongly consider the SHL5Plus.  Went to listen to them at a friends house and thought they were great speakers.  A very different setup from mine though.  He has very high power tube amps powering them and I have Pass INT-25 powering mine.  He has a big house and I have a smallish apartment.  Room setup was completely different.  But given these variables the 30.2XD's were my choice for my music in any case.  He likes symphonies.  I like jazz.  He likes opera.  I don't (not that i don't, but I don't feed on opera often).  Again, for my musical taste and setting the 30.2xd's just work better for me.  I loved the SHL5Pluses though.  They sounded like great "speakers" and the 30.2XD's sound like monitors (instruments).  

That said, I added an SVS 3000 Micro sub to the system a couple of months ago and it was a distinct improvement under let's say 55 hz or so for the down deep ambient space.  Had I gone with  the SHL's I would not have needed this sub.