Spendor, Harbeth...why so hot ?


I never had chance to listen them and compaire. But it appear that these speakers have very vocal crowd praising them. What are the advantages of these speakers versus equvalent B&W or Dynaudio? How they sound?
tinfoil26929
yashu,

I'm curious if you ever tried tube amplification with your Thiels.  That's my preference.  I could see Thiels being a bit more relentless with SS amps, especially if one's room isn't very damped.  But for me in a well controlled room, with CJ tube amps, the Thiels have proven about the least fatiguing speaker I've owned in decades (and I have very sensitive ears, including Tinnitus that gets aggravated by the slightest brightness/shoutiness/distortion in the upper registers).   My reviewer friend always had the "Thiels are bright and fatiguing" bias until he heard my set up, after which he did a 180 degree about face, feeling they were super smooth to listen to.

Back to the Harbeths, I really admired the great sense of balance and control through the whole frequency range.  They were powered by my CJ premier 12 monoblocks and sounded great. 



Prof,

Never did try the Thiels with tubes.  But I did try everything else including cables, tube CD players, etc......That's way in the past and I won't revisit again.

My Harbeth's and esl57's should get me through till the "end"!
id agree with Prof, the SHL5+ do not portray depth as well as other speakers ive had and they do not totally disappear.

they are amazing though :)