whipsaw, I received your bat signal!
@arafiq
I had the Harbeth SuperHL5plus for a while. I sold them and eventually bought
Joseph Audio Perspectives (original). I plan to upgrade them to graphene at some point.
I've been asked before to compare Harbeth to Joseph speakers so I'll grab a long reply I wrote to someone else on the subject. He was asking about comparison between the Harbeth 30s and the Joseph Pulsars, but everything I wrote pertains to the SuperHL5+ and the Joseph speakers.
Keep in mind I ended up with the Joseph speakers and, all things considered, as much as I love Harbeth too, I wouldn't trade them for the Harbeth. The Joseph speakers will absolutely give you a wider, deeper soundstage and over all more impressive "disappearing" act, vs the Harbeth.
Here's what I wrote:
---------------------------
....as someone who loves both the JA and the Harbeth speakers, I think I can give some idea of the differences. I listened to the Pulsars before I bought my Perspectives, and they sound close to identical, but the Perspectives add deeper bass.
I've listened to the whole Harbeth line, and owned the Harbeth SuperHL5plus speakers for a while.
I'm attracted to both those brands because I'm very in to tonal beauty/realism, and both do that in a close to peerless fashion...and yet sound very different.
I would say the Harbeth sound is an updated BBC monitor sound, with that richness and body in the mids, that organic filled out sense of voices that make singers sound human and present physically, not merely vivid but see-through holograms. They are masters with timbre -wood sounding "woody," brass "brassy," rather than the blanched, electronic tone of many more modern speakers. And yet being an updated BBC sound, they don't sound obviously boxy, and they do excellent detail and clarity. I find them super balanced sounding.
Though one thing I found with the Harbeth 30's is they did sound a wee bit darker than life. That's one reason I chose the SuperHL5plus, which seemed to have a more extended, airy top end. But I love the sound of the 30's as well.
If I had to generalize about the Modern Speaker Sound, it's that super low cabinet coloration, super "fast" detail and transparency of often metal drivers - exceedingly clear and clean, though sometimes at the expense of body, texture and organically real timbre.
As for the Joseph speakers, they are also masters of tone. But whereas the Harbeths have a stronger foot in the older comfy BBC sound, the Josephs have a stronger foot in the modern speaker sound. They are super clean, pure, transparent, detailed, boxless sounding, image like mad, etc. However they manage to do this without sounding sterile. Just the opposite: rather than their purity blanching the music of tonal color, you get tonal and timbral colours blooming through with greater purity. Like looking at coloured pebbles through a stream which has been suddenly cleaned of all it's silt - the vividness of the colours seem revealed. So wood sounds very distinct, as does brass, drum cymbals, all the exact timbres of a drum set, the sparkle and growl of a piano. That's one thing that astonished me when I auditioned the Joseph speakers, the utter purity and lack of grain, and even though the highs were very extended, this lack of grain lent an unmechanical ease to the presentation which many remark upon. And even though they use a soft dome tweeter, cymbals and steel instruments sound particularly "metallic" yet relaxed.
The other "trick" up the Joseph sleeve is why, despite their transparency and clean sound, they don't sound sterile: They have a very juicy lower midrange to bass. Jeff Joseph says on his website: "Live, unamplified music has unmistakable presence and clarity. Yet, at the same time it also sounds relaxed and warm." And that is precisely the balance his speakers strike. They have a richness in the warmth region that keeps things sounding...well...rich and warm, not threadbare. And with strikingly deep bass (both Pulsar and Perspectives). And the bass isn't just "low bass," it is reach-out-and-drive-the-music punchy bass. In other words, the speakers don't just do audiophile tone and imaging, don't just play audiophile standard tracks, the are FUN and give kick and drive to all genres of music. And there is a wonderful way the Joseph Speakers swell dynamically, the way their bass warmth and punch kicks in whenever required in a piece of music, that makes music swell and breath so well. Think of the dynamics of a symphony or soundtracks. Just wonderful on the Joseph speakers. I find they are one of the greatest balancing acts of the characteristics many audiophiles seek - disappearing as speakers, huge soundstage, precise imaging, tonal accuracy, amazing detail, punch and drama. It's no wonder that they seem to draw almost all accolades at shows, and from user reports.
OK...but nothing is perfect right?
What you will get with the Harbeths is they were STILL have a bit more evenly distributed body to the sound, top to bottom, for instruments and voices. To be really picky, the Joseph speakers sound super big and full with most stuff, especially when it engages the lower midrange, but can sound thinner on thinner sounds. So for instance a high voice may be more upper throat than chest, or Miles Davis' trumpet muted will be more mouthpiece than the resonating bell body you'd get with the Harbeth speakers. So in a way the Harbeths are a bit more evenly balanced. The Harbeths also have a bit more sense of "texture," that sense of bow on string kind of thing. You'll hear every nuance of detail on the Joseph, but there is something a bit more cut-through-the-air organic in how the Harbeth presents instrumental texture and voices. You can't have everything 
So, there you go. If you move from Harbeth to Joseph, you'll lose a bit of ultimate even body through all the sound, that certain characteristic Harbeth texture, but you'll gain a more pure, clean yet colourful sound, more dazzling imaging/soundstating, probably a higher sense of detail, richer punchier deeper sound from the lower midrange down, more drama etc.
Hope that helps.
