No. I first heard a pair at a friend's house (who also has the P3) and I think his room was smaller than yours and we were sitting fairly close. After that, I bought a pair of Super HL 5s. My room is larger than yours and I sit about 9 feet away. You should be fine.
Harbeth Super HL 5 Plus room size?
Would this Harbeth be too big for my 20x15x8 listening room. I sit about 7 feet from my current Harbeth P3 ESR with JL Audio subwoofer. There is a pair listed here at a good price. I love the sound of the P3 in my room and was wondering if the larger ported Harbeth would be the right move to make? Are there any HL5 owners out there? BTW, a few years ago I tried the Compact 7 and I preferred the smaller P3!
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Yogiboy, I think you would be fine with the Harbeth SuperHL5 Plus in your room. I am using the M40.2 in a room about the same size as yours with no issues. I have heard the SHL5 plus also in rooms similar to yours. They did not have to be too far out in the room either. Have you ever heard the SuperHL5 plus before though? They have a very nice full range sound, but will have a much more extended top end than your P3s. Some folks do not mind that. Others have found it to be on the overly detailed side. Might be worth a demo for you , if you have a place locally to listen. |
I have Harbeth SHL 5+ 40th anniversary in 18x12x8 room. 36inches from rear wall. 8 feet apart. My chair is about 9 feet from the front speaker plane. Sounds great. I also have a pair of the P3esr 40th that I one afternoon put in the system using the same footprint. Amazing how good they sounded; not the full sound of the SHL 5, but good nonetheless. If you can I recommend the 5s. |
You should be fine. Harbeths actually seem to do pretty well in "normal size rooms," especially as they probably originally targetted British homes (I believe Alan Shaw has said so). In any case, my Harbeth SuperHL5plus worked fine in my 13' x 15' room, in terms of even frequency balance, no bloat etc. My only issue was a somewhat limited soundstage depth. Quite a number of other speakers produced more believable depth and dimensionality in my room (including my current Thiel speakers). The Harbeth speakers didn't seem to have this noticeable problem in the stores, but then the store auditions I had were in a large demo room. So either they bloom in soundstage in a larger room, or perhaps it was because I was sitting further from them at the store and so due to that the soundstage seemed deeper. FWIW.... |
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/harbeth-monitor-40-2.25222/ Check out this guy for 40.2's in a small room. Scroll down (and down and down) for photos of room and acoustic treatment of walls. |