Harbeth Love and your experiences

I recently picked up some C7ES3s. They're still in the break-in period but I'm not terribly impressed so far. Tone of the midrange is the only immediate   improvement over my previous speakers. The bass is definitely lacking in my somewhat large 25'×15×8 room. Unfortunately, the SHL5 is beyond my budget.

I've been told that the Spendor SP2/3R2 Classic is a better all around speaker, including bass response, but many claim Harbeth is the better brand.
 I also wonder if the Spendor cabinet quality is on par with Harbeth.

@helomech, couldn't agree with you more. Either you'll need to get subs or go higher up in the line.  I'm not even sure if SHL5 will give you enough bass in your room.  I owned a pair of C7s and ended up selling and getting full range floor speaker. 

had harbeths (40.1 and HL7 supers) and spendors (sp1/2 and SP100s), but i keep coming back to ProAcs (D1.5 and now D30R’s) and my never-ever sell-them Quad ESL 63s... I think I like a slightly sympathetic, ’boosted sound’ in key frequency ranges like midbass and lower treble... to my ear it makes the music sound a little more alive... just being honest to my own tastes

@ jjss49 - I own a pair of Spendor S100"s.  I've always felt the Harbeth/Spendor story to be unique because they've historically made a few speakers that seem to be "siblings".  I've always imagined the Harbeth 40 series to be a kind of Spendor SP100's on steroids!  I've owned my spkrs since 1990(!) and often thought about the Harbeths as an obvious upgrade.  I'd love to hear yr impressions of your Spendor's vs. yr Harbeth's!

chazro -

with spendors (esp. s100/sp100) there is a lovely deep rolling bass that is wonderful on one hand, but with some music with ’snap’ the woofer response seems somewhat slow to me... despite these being not inefficient speakers, i find for a more lively, quick bass response you actually need quite a good, powerful amp that has strong damping factor to grip the woofers well to make spendors sound more dynamic ... this is also true of the big harbeth 40’s and its giant woofer cones.... with spendors, to me, the real timeless magic of the speaker is that they invite you listen to the music as an integral, artistic whole... revel in the beauty of the tones voices etc etc, of the whole picture... their imaging is less precise and tonality is more forgiving, they are never aggressive in a way that reminds you that this is a hi fi ... on the other hand when you try to really listen INTO the music, i feel the spendors lack some high end detail and bass drive (as mentioned above). harbeths are a notch better in this regard as their tweeters are more modern and more alive, and the proacs are better still, in that they use smaller woofers that are quicker to move, and sweeter/sharper tweeters that give more resolution into the music without losing the beauty of the whole ... all three classic brit speaker brands do fundamental justice and truth to the midrange, and for that alone, they will never do out of style...  hope this helps