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Devore or Harbeths to replace my ESL63s?

I'm on the last stages of a speaker quest that has been quite difficult. For the last year I've had ESL 63s in a smallish room (14'8 x 11'10). I've got them to work extremely well for small scale ensembles, particularly jazz, and they also sound great with electronic music. But I can't give them enough space to image an orchestra, and they don't really rock (at least without Gradient sub-woofers, but that's another story...)

So after a long search, it's come down to either Harbeth or Devore for replacements. These have been my favourite contemporary speakers for years, so basically I've just spent a long time finding out what I already knew.

I previously owned Compact 7ES3 and enjoyed them, but found them unrefined in the soprano regio, and slightly muddy around the port output. The Monitor 30.1 is considerably smoother in the high frequencies and I find it a beautifully balanced speaker. It is the perfect size for my room, with one failing. It lacks the half octave of bass needed to give kick drums any force. I tried the new SHL5+ in my room but they are just too big for my room, sadly.

A friend of mine owns some Devore Nines. Very few people have Devores in the UK, but he has a fantastic system with VTL 2.5/150. It used to be that when I heard his system I would find the Compact 7s unlistenable for a couple of days. That changed with the ESL63s, but the Quads have an uneven combination of great strengths and severe limits in a small room.

So it's come down to either Harbeth M30.1, Devore Super 8, or Devore 88.

I have a second hand pair of the Super 8s at home at the moment. They are beautifully organic and draw you in to their world gradually. Other speakers I have at home have more immediate and crisp micro-detail (Harbeth P3ESR for example), but the Super 8s seem to put a root into the ground and claim the room as the proper place for their music making. Relax, they say, don't worry about the details, we will sort out your musical life.

I have only two reservations; first, they are quite lean in the mid-bass, especially in comparison to my friend's Nines, and this presents some limits with rock and electronic. Second, my system is optimised for Harbeths (and then for ESLs), and Devores would probably work better with lower powered, very refined valve amps. I don't get the same clarity that I get with Harbeths in my system.

I also have an option on some second hand 88s, but I have never heard them and I would have to buy blind. That is generally against my religion.

I guess the key question is; do I go with what I know (Monitor 30.1) or look to optimise my system gradually for the newcomers (Devore Super 8 or 88).

I'd be grateful for any thoughts from anyone who has compared the M30.1 with Devores in the same room, since that is what I can't do at the moment.

(My system details: the amps are Unison Research Unico Pre/DM. The sources are a Fletcher Omega Point 5/Audio Note Arm/Nagaoka MP500, Trichord Diablo/NCPSU). Audio Synthesis DAX Discrete with AS modded CD Transport.)
andreweast
salectric
755 posts
 
Different people have different tastes in speakers, no question about that. I have to take exception to Dodgealum's comment about the Harbeth 30.1 and the Daedalus heard at last year's Capital Audio Fest. I was at the CAF as well for both Fri and Sat and heard the same rooms Dodgealum visited. For what it's worth, in my opinion, the Harbeth 30.1 is a superb speaker and is indeed a worthy option for someone coming from Quads. Neither the Daedalus nor the DeVore speakers have ever sounded as musical, as real, as the 30.1 in the half a dozen times I have heard each one. So clearly we all have different tastes.
bojack
652 posts
 
Go with the 30.1's…a no brainer.
andreweast OP
30 posts
 
Thanks for the ideas everyone. Dodgealum, your experience is fascinating, since you've come from the same original point as I have. The Daedelus speakers looks really interesting; 3 way, superbly constructed cabinets, efficient, natural driver materials - plenty of plus points already. However I fear that even the smallest designs would overload my room. The Pan is larger than an LS3/6 cabinet, and larger than the Harbeth SHL5. It's not a lossy box design like the BBC monitors, so I suppose that would help, but I'm still cautious about that size of cabinet in my room. (Mind you, I've had Klipsch La Scalas in the room, but that was a month of madness!). Still, you've peaked my interest and I'll try contacting the UK Deadelus guy.

Ctsooner, Vandersteens look interesting to me, but I don't think they've got a distributor over hear at present. I know one or two people on the UK forums have used them but they are very rare here, which is a shame.

So many designs from the US don't seem to make it over here. I think distributors are very conservative about what they think people want for UK living rooms. And British speaker design has been dominated by polite, skinny floor standers. We have small living rooms, and there seems to be a 'better heard not seen' design philosophy.

I've never been too keen on floor standing designs, but the Devore Gibbons have been one exception to that. What Fjn04 says about the Orangutans does also apply to the Gibbons to some extent too, I think. Devore are just very picky about amps in general. They can sound mediocre with the wrong amps, but thrive with high quality valve designs. A couple of us took some amps over to try on our friend's Nines and it was bemusing. Some amps that sounded great with Harbeths or Proacs didn't sound good at all with the Devores. But with our friends VTL amps, the Nines are wonderful - a beautiful tonal richness, a huge sense of space, great dynamics, and all of these qualities are well balanced.

The big selling point about Harbeths is that they can sound very good with quite modest amps. I went to a session Alan Shaw hosted when he launched the SHL5+ recently and they were using a Quad cd player and QSP power amp. The whole system would be little more than £6k here, but like my friends Devore/VTL system, it was just wonderfully balanced - superb, especially with orchestral and choral music.

So it's easier to get the best out of Harbeths, but I think the Devores can deliver more when you give them the amps they want. They are just rather demanding.

I think I could live happily with the Monitor 30.1 in my small room, but if only they had that extra half octave. So then there is the question of subs, and the endless frustration of trying to integrate....
yogiboy's avatar
yogiboy
5,701 posts
 
Check out the JanZen stand mounted electrostatics.
http://www.janszenloudspeaker.com/
ctsooner
2,480 posts
 
That's really too bad they don't distribute there. They were the only speakers in the under 10k range that I found to be coherent, detailed, neutral (piano sounds like it should), non fatiguing and dynamic. You need all the proper equipment around it, but that goes for any good speaker or it should. I have liked the Harbeth, but I just miss the deep bass on that type of speaker. They do a great job for what they are designed to do. The Devore I heard with the 30W tube integrated was the Orangutang 96. I just didn't like it and neither did the guy who brought it into the store to listen to it vs the speaker the store was selling. Both to me were just hot and thin in the mid bass. They were hollow...When he told me how much they cost, I was in shock. I know many of you guys loves these speakers, but I don't understand as there are so many great speakers in that range. I get different ears and all, but when I bet if most folks heard them against other options that were really good, you'd hear the difference. Again, JMHO. I wish you luck in your search. Sounds like there may be some other options that are bought up as we all talk about what WE own or want to own, lol.
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