Best Loudspeakers for Rich Timbre?

@david_ten , I think the life of us audiophiles is like one long exercise in self-critique. Forums like this could almost be loosely termed as a self help group!

Audiophiles do mainly tend to be men, but there are no barriers of age, race, occupation or income. Just a common pursuit of personal sonic ecstasy.

Of course we can be an impressionable and sensitive lot. I intensely dislike my Hi-Fi being criticised, although I’m not as bad as I used to be. But you can also easily say the same for many car owners.

I try to take the impressions of fellow enthusiasts far more seriously than any magazine reviewer because they generally seem to ring more truer, and feel more real world.

I bet its almost impossible to be completely neutral as a paid reviewer because of all the industry politics and various vested interests. Designers and manufacturers probably feel hyper sensitive to any criticism. If I was in their shoes, I know that I would. All that time, effort and money invested.

I am still slightly puzzled as to why Magico speakers don’t get a universal thumbs up, the way say for example DeVore do. Alon Wolf seems to be far too meticulous in his approach as to not have canvassed a wide range of opinion before unleashing his products. Speaking as someone who has never heard a pair I wonder whether it’s something to do with that aluminium cabinet or the graphene drivers?

Still, enormous credit to Alon, and all the other designers out there trying to push the sonic barriers back further and further.

I am still slightly puzzled as to why Magico speakers don’t get a universal thumbs up, the way say for example DeVore do. Alon Wolf seems to be far too meticulous in his approach as to not have canvassed a wide range of opinion before unleashing his products. Speaking as someone who has never heard a pair I wonder whether it’s something to do with that aluminium cabinet or the graphene drivers?

Very good point. I think people, me included, gotten used to heavy colored sound from speakers, once it is removed, it is very unfamiliar to us. It may take some time to understand, but once you get it, there is no return. All the talk about "feeling" etc, is absolutely rubbish. It is the intellect that does the work, people need to educate themselves about what it is they are listening to. If you are confronted, and willing to accept the fact that what you like is only 50% of the resolution (Harbeth speakers), you may start to "feel" different about it.

Although my wife liked all the Harbeths she heard, I can appreciate their sound but would not own them.  My old Legacy Focus have superior dynamic range, bass, highs coupled with a more neutral sound.  The vonSchweikert and Lumenwhite speakers are even more neutral.  The Magico speakers (I haven't heard the A3) are extremely neutral but that is not the problem when I've heard them which I mentioned previously. 

As for the WIlson's, the smaller ones sounded very nice and the newer models are their best sounding.  Older Wilson's=worse sound, especially their Max speakers of 20 to 30 years ago. 

The other point I made was that I prefer efficient rather than inefficient speakers.  jones4music points out that the Magicos and Wilsons sound best with huge monoblocks.  That's not what I want to use to drive speakers.  I have 125w. tube monoblocks.  I've heard Wilsons with huge VTL and Magicos with huge Solution monoblocks.  So what?  I still didn't like the sound.  Yes, maybe they are too neutral for me.  The sound did not move me as much as a cheaper 40.2 Harbeth with it's highly colored and less resolving sound (I prefer the Volti horn speakers to Harbeths for nearly half the price).  

I'm glad you enjoy the Magico and Wilson speakers.  They don't meet my requirements.

mheinze wrote:

Harbeth they are too warm, with very bad resolution

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If you are confronted, and willing to accept the fact that what you like is only 50% of the resolution (Harbeth speakers)

^^ File this under "Audiophiles say the darnedest things!"

You may not like Harbeth speakers, but I suggest you not go from there to making silly comments like the above.

You have your experience of course and have every right to  decide which speakers sound best to you. But you are taking your opinion into making objective claims about resolution. You aren’t in a unique exalted position in deciding among speakers; many of us here have long experience playing instruments, lots of exposure to acoustic instruments and other "real" sounds (everyone knows what a real person sounds like), and many of us are just as interested in understanding the difference between real and reproduced sound.

Harbeth speakers have been highly reviewed as having exceptionally accurate timbre for voices and instruments by reviewers well familiar with other high resolution systems. A great many audiophiles have agreed.

I have previously owned the Harbeth Super HL5plus and recently completed a several-years-long audition of many top contender speakers (including Paradigm Persona, Audio Physic, Joseph Audio, Focal, Raidho, Revel, Magico A3, etc). The Harbeth speakers held up quite well and showed plenty of detail and resolution.

As everyone knows, reproducing the human voice in a natural manner is one of the biggest challenges for any system, given how familiar we are with the sounds of real voices. Harbeth is renowned for the natural sounding reproduction of the human voice. And indeed, in my auditions where I specifically check this aspect out, between the Magico and the Harbeth speakers, voices tended to sound more realistic, natural and organically believable on the Harbeth speakers, to my ears.

The ridiculous claims about Harbeth being low resolution speakers, or having "50%" resolution are unfounded opinion. Harbeth has been just as fanatical about developing their radial driver, in terms of reducing coloration, as pretty much any other manufacturer attempting realistic sound reproduction, which is why they have some renown in the audiophile world. And the measurements support the high level of performance, as can be seen in the Stereophile review:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-super-hl5plus-loudspeaker-measurements


Atkinson’s comments in the measurements section:

AD commented that "the Harbeth Super HL5plus sounded conspicuously, even startlingly, clear." It came as no surprise, therefore, to see that the Harbeth’s cumulative spectral-decay plot (fig.8) demonstrated a superbly clean decay throughout the midrange and treble. Harbeth’s RADIAL2 material does indeed result in a well-behaved woofer cone.

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Other than that lively enclosure, which is a deliberate design decision—note AD’s comment about "the consistently truthful, present manner with which they reproduce singing voices"—THE Harbeth Super HL5plus’s MEASURED PERFORMANCE IS BEYOND REPROACH.

So if I’m looking at evidence for a claim, I can see the great amount of praise Harbeth has garnered among reviewers and many audiophiles for
sonic excellence and truth of timbre. I can note my own experience actually owning Harbeth speakers and being able to compare them to a broad range of speakers I’ve owned and audiotioned. And measurements support that they are a high resolution speaker via excellent engineering.

Or...I can take the comment from a forum audiophile that Harbeths only give you "50% resolution."

Hmm...I wonder which is more credible ;-)