Joseph Audio Perspective2 vs Harbeth SHL5+

Sounds good arafiq !

Two things I forgot to mention about when I owned the Harbeth SuperHL5plus:

For some reason I could never get them to image with much depth.

I’ve always valued soundstaging and imaging (though tone/timbre above that), my room supports fantastic depth of soundstaging, and all the speakers I’ve owned have achieved this. But I could never get more than a somewhat for-shortened soundstage with the Harbeths, which was frustrating. Even if I moved them closer to nearfield.  My Thiel 2.7 and Joseph speakers do wall-melting depth of soundstaging in comparison.

Also, I just remembered that I actually briefly, just for kicks, drove the Perspectives with my old Eico HF81 14w integrated tube amp. And it sounded gorgeous. I don’t remember having any particular sense of the speakers running out of steam with those amps, though the bass was a bit more rich and loose, which was the sound of those amps on every other speaker I had as well.

@arafiq OP:

Thank you. Great plan. It has taken me decades of slow upgrades to get my system together. But the rewards have far exceeded my expectations.

For most of my time as an audiophile I researched endlessly, listened with ever increasingly discerning ears to greater nuances of sound reproduction and made good choices compromising on price. But when I put the last couple of pieces of ARC into place to sound changed to a level above anything I have heard. There is a naturalness and balance of details across the audio spectrum I have not heard before. To me a level of sophistication I have not heard. Which makes sense when you are buying from a company that has been assaulting the high end for over forty years. This stuff is not made by folks just getting their feet on the ground.

Of course, this is not to say that the ARC is for everyone. Folks listening to rock and hip-hop that want their system to loosen the nails and screws in the house might opt for something else. That is not to say my system will not play well and loud enough to deafen you… it can, but MAC / B&W might do it better for greater propondence of bass..

I own a pair of Joseph Audio Perspective II’s and I think they are excellent, full range speakers. Prof nailed the description of their sound and character and I’m not sure I can add more to his insightful and accurate analysis. 
 

My alternative speaker of choice has been the ProAc Response line, which in my opinion, excel in tone, texture and pure midrange. Very similar to the Perspectives, except in the low end, where I would give a slight nod to the Perspectives for weight, and the ProAc’s for bass articulation. The Perspectives have a gravitas that is beguiling. The sound of a drum set has the drive and authority that just sounds ‘right’. I’m a former drummer, with modest to diminishing talent, but that is my reference, having heard so many drum sets over the years.  The Perspectives also get voices right. Piano trios sound awesome, come to think of it, I haven’t played any genre of music where they failed to excel. 

My pair of Perspectives are being driven by a Luxman M700u stereo amplifier, with 120 watts of power.  While the sensitivity is lower than the ProAc’s, I think the Perspectives must be an easy load to drive because I can get them to mid-80 decibels with only 1/4 to a 1/3 volume. Not a hard speaker to drive, IMHO.  

Good stuff ewert.

As much as many of us might imagine how great it might be to own some flagship speakers way out of our price range, one thing to note is that Joseph speakers have very often over the years been deemed "best sound of the show" by tons of attendees and reviewers, almost no matter what model Joseph displayed. Sure show conditions aren’t decisive, but it does indicate that one is getting top tier sound with Joseph speakers.

As to power requirements, good to see your Luxman is working well with the Perspectives. It’s an interesting situation with the impedance of the Perspectives, since...from my meager understanding of these issues...the Perspectives don’t go down to 4 ohms so with solid state I presume you don’t get the benefit of power doubling in to those lower ohm ratings. Which is why the higher ohm ratings are good for tube amps (helpful because tube amps don’t double their power if the ohm rating goes low).

140w of tube power drives my perspectives certainly much louder than I can handle.

And we agree about the Perspectives with drums. As I wrote in my other long speaker comparison thread, one of the things that attracted me to the Devore O/96 speakers was how they sounded with drums - the way kick drum power seemed to come out and roll over you like the real thing, vs lots of audiophile speakers where the bass sort of sits back in the soundfield, holographically.

The Perspectives have some of that Devore-like bass quality with bass.   Yes bass imaging is quite precise, but there is a roundness and warmth that reaches out and rolls along the floor, so you get the feel of what the drummer is doing on the bass drum. And snares have surprising heft as well on the Perspectives.

I’m looking forward to @arafiq dropping back here to give us his detailed report!

Comparing Persperctive2's to Harbeth SHL5's is is probably not a fair fight (like taking a knife to a gun fight).

 I'd be interested to hear how the Perspective2 compares to Harbeth 40.2 / 40.3's.  Having owned 40.1's for about 8 years and now owning 40.2 Anni's, I can say the 40.2's are better than their predecessors with drums and transparency, but the 40.1's are a touch better with female vocals and are more full bodied and rich sounding.