Why do Harbeth speakers have such a cult following

I just bought the 30 model for $1400 including stands for my friend. I hope he likes them.

They are comfortable to listen to for hours on, without listening fatigue.

They seem to do classical music well.

I am excited about them.

all speaker has it's own characters. I owned HL5S and it has it's own sound being un-amplified and natural but also lacks dynamic punch and doesn't go very low. They are easy to listen to and very musical with all kinds of musics, I toe tapped with everything I played but I missed a bit of excitement. Great musical speakers and not audiophile speakers.

dynamic punch can be achieved using punchy amp and source(dac) and copper interconnects modified with mundorf solder which contains silver gold etc.In my case Krell amp and bryston dac and Musical fidelity vlink192 does this trick

Luna said: "missed a bit of excitement". That indeed can be one of the tradeoffs of Harbeths.....a bit of softening of detail, a loss of peering way into the recording, so they can indeed sound a litle on the dull side. Not slamming the speakers, I welcome their contrast to the more common overhyped, bright, harsh, glarey high end offerings that can ruin the musical experience.

Considering introducing my Prima Luna family to Harbeth.  My older 1.5 Thiels loved the match.