Anyone listened to LaHave Speakers

My room is large-ish, about 22 feet by 13 feet, but I do sit nearfield and have them on the long wall. It may not be relevant here and I have never come into contact with any other Lahave than my own, but fit/finish/build quality/sturdyness is as good as I have ever seen. Every bolt, seam, surface feature (and symmetry-factor) looks perfect to me no matter how close I examine them. They do best with neutral amplification and they do like tubes somewhere in the chain, and they scale with a better food chain, although solid state is very good also. They are revealing but not ruthlessly so. I have a tube preamp and a solid state power amp. (I use a nonwarmish Psvane 6NS7 tube in my preamp for best results; I am a Psvane tube fan.)
The Melas are NOT dull speaker--the highs are very present and soar, but they do not sting at all. I like the highs much better than my old Kharma 3.2FEs, which could be painful. The Kharmas were imaging champs, with a total disappearing act even with one speaker driven, but it came at a cost of some fatiguing highs. Overall tonality is definitely preferable to me in the Lahaves over the Kharmas.

You've nailed it for me Rgs92. Tonality is the most important aspect of reproduced sound, get it right and all the other aspects of a stereo system takes a back seat, IMHO. I heard the Kharma 3.2 once at a NYC audio show with a Lamm 1.1 I guess it was, the 18 watt SET amps. Yes, the disappearing act and huge soundstage which to me has never been a priority. For something to sound real it must first get the accurate pitch of instruments and maintain that throughout the frequency spectrum, first and foremost. It is difficult to find this in most speakers since they can distract with other areas of performance and by the time you purchase and live with them for a while, it's too late.

Yeah, just to give a perspective, for the last 15 years or so I've always gone to the NY shows and would always have a good listen to the well known midsize reasonably priced floorstanders/Monitors that would regularly be there that I really liked and actually felt, yep, these are all pretty good, different from each other and I could live with them. These were (in various versions) the Von Schweikert VR4, Merlin VSM, Joseph RM7 or RM33, or the Dynaudio C1s.

They all had some important consistent strong points I mentally noted year after year (VSR vocals/rounded mids/sweet highs/percussion, Merlin openness/bass/ambience, Joseph coherency and natural driverless sound, and Dynaudio dynamics and solid bass).

But somehow the Lahaves, have a more compelling emotional and live sound that makes it significantly preferable to any one of these, the ability to draw me in with no hint of abuse, even if one of the above technically beats in in one of the areas of strength I noted. So for me, the Lahaves are the champ here.

I just met the owner, Jim at his shop and had a chance to listen to an older version that he uses while he builds his speakers. They are the best sounding, neutral speakers I have ever heard, bass, midrange, and treble were accurate, bass was deep and full. I was blown away with the sound. Jim also showed me cabinets that were in various stages of production and I was able to see the attention to detail on the inside of the cabinets, the bracing and the thickness of the walls......no wonder these weigh so much. The wood finish veneers were beautiful with matching grain on each pair. All in all Jim makes incredible pieces just for their looks but the real test is the sound and these speakers are the best I have ever heard. If you are serious about your music you won't be disappointed with a pair of La Have's.

Thinking of selling my Lahave mela. I haven't listened to speakers in a very long. Let me know if anyone from canada is interested. Bought from an authorized dealer, looking to sell these for $4k