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Harbeth C7 vs Proac D25 Review

Hi folks. As some of you may know I've been on the hunt for an attractive pair of floorstanders to replace my Compact 7's. I've recently had the opportunity to plug a pair of D25's into my system and wanted to share the results. Rest of the gear is a VPI Scout/JMW9 arm and Dynavector 20XH feeding an ARC SP16 into a ARC 100.2. CD player is a Rotel 971. Cables by Ridge Street Audio, Wireworld and Naim on the speakers. The room is 22 X 14 X 9 opening into an 11 X 11 on the short wall where the speakers are located. I've had the Proac's set up for about a week and have listened to a variety of music from rock to chamber to jazz.
First of all, some might question putting the $2650 C7 against the $5500 D25. First, the D25 is in the price range of where I want to be in any upgrade. Second, over the past year or so of my search the C7's have proven themselves easily able to compete with speakers costing two or three times their retail price. Both are two ways in vented boxes so here too the comparison is apt.
First, let me say that the D25 was surprisingly good. I heard them at a dealer some time ago and was disappointed by their sound--though suspected the room was hurting their performance. I was right. I'll just run down a list of comparisons and talk about both in the process.

The D25 is a more revealing speaker. I hear details in my recordings that I've never encountered. For example, in "Nightblindness" off of David Gray's "White Ladder" as the song fades there is an industrial sounding backbeat that I've never heard with the C7's. I could give many more examples. Inner detail and instrumental lines are clearer on the D25's.

The high frequency response of the D25 is among the best I've heard. Natural, vibrant and airy. The Harbeth is slightly rolled off and less airy by comparison. Soundstaging of the D25 is more precise. Instruments are more surgically placed and there is greater depth and width. The Harbeth's provide what I would say a more natural presentation--more like what you would hear live where instruments blend together to make up the entire sonic picture.

The bass of the D25 is surprisingly deep. It is also rather ill defined. I'm no expert but it seems to me this speaker would sound a lot better if the designer rolled the bass off around 35hz. The speaker is rated down to 20hz and in attempting to go so low there is a loss of speed, detail, pace and timing. This is more apparent on some recordings than others. What I hear, no matter how I have positioned them in my listening area, is a bump at the bottom that thickens the sound and muddies what resides above in the frequency spectrum. I'm not saying the bass is whooly and awful--I just think the performance in this area could be better. The Harbeth's don't go as deep and, while not particularly tuneful, do play the bass line better than the D25's.

The D25's are more clinical/analytical sounding than the Harbeth's. While I would not call them dry or hard sounding the D25's do not provide the rich and palapable midrange that the Harbeth's have. This is where the Harbeth's are (maybe) unbeatable. Voices and acoustic instruments simply sound REAL. Not so with the D25--you are still listening to a hifi system--albeit a good one. If you are thinking of the D25 I would definatly run them with tubes all the way around. Be careful with cables as well. Think warm, warm, warm with every ancillary. I've heard speakers that are clearly cooler and more analytical (the Thiels come to mind) but the Proacs do not seduce you the way the Harbeth's will.
In addition, the Proacs are more accurate to the recording. If the recording sucks, so does the sound. The Harbeths, on the other hand, tend to sound good with even bad recordings. They just sound better as the quality of the recording improves. Also, the Harbeth's could really care less what you put in front of them--they sounded good when I had a cheap Japanese receiver and cd player in front of them before I put together a better rig. The Proacs, it seems to me, have a very neutral response and therefore require considerable attention (and money?) to other components in the chain. I'm not saying my gear sucks but perhaps the D25's could get better results with some really serious tube electronics driving them. At times I heard a hardness or glare in the upper midrange that was off putting. The Harbeth's have a mild suckout in this range designed into the speaker and, while not absolutely neutral, I prefer this deemphasis.

At the end of the day while I found the D25's "technically" superior in that they had more boxes checked in the columns, the Harbeth's are my preference. When I listen to the D25's I'm thinking hifi. When I listen to the Harbeth's I'm thinking MUSIC. If they were the same price I might consider the D25's--they really do sound quite good. However, at half the price the Harbeth's retain my personal title as best value in audio today.

Hope this helps somebody out there. Go ahead and fire away.

Oh yeah, one final thing. While at the dealer a while back I also heard the D38. It struck me as MUCH better than the D25 and well worth the extra money. While the room still sucked, the bass of the D38 was much better defined and controlled. It had greater impact but less bloom and bloat. The soundstage was far larger and the D38's created a greater sense of realism in this regard. The rest of my comments about the D25 would apply to the D38. Essentially I found the D38 more convincing than the D25 and closer to that essential musicality that the Harbeth's have in spades.
128x128dodgealum
aktchi
274 posts
 
As a Spendor BC1 owner who is occasionally brooding about possible upgrades, I found your review very interesting.( I must say I too agree about wanting my speakers to be inherently "musical" and not overly sensitive to amp, wall etc.)

Your taste comes across as classic British sound. You might consider Spendor SP1/2e as well as newer ones S8e and S9e. Also, since you like Harbeth sound, one obvious channel is to look at their "higher" models, such as Monitor 40.

Finally, there are small, less well-known companies, basically one dedicated designer building speakers. Many years ago, Spendor, Harbeth, Quad, etc., were just such shops. Today's examples might be GMA, Tyler, someone recommended Chapman, and I am sure a few others. The problem is listening to them without buying first. :-)

Although in the end we must decide fo rourselves, an experienced group such as we have at Audiogon helps a great deal. Anyway I enjoyed your review and look forward to hearing about your continuing adventure.
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drubin
3,274 posts
 
Remember The Fly? I'd like to take my Harbeths and my Thiels and combine them at the molecular-genetic level. Sonically, that is.
dodgealum's avatar
dodgealum OP
1,404 posts
 
I don't recall the film but I'm with you Drubin--maybe the speaker that does everything I want and is under 10K simply does not exist. I live in hope.....

Longer reply to Nathan and others to come--gotta go to work!
dodgealum's avatar
dodgealum OP
1,404 posts
 
Just to respond with a bit more detail to some of the comments made. First, I hope it was clear in my review that I really like the D25. I think it is one of the better speakers out there at and above the price point. I agree with Nathan that Proac has moved toward "accuracy" with the new D series having heard both the old 2.5 and 3.8 and recalling them as having a more liquid midrange and a warmer presentation. This is something I wish the new series retained, but with the extension, speed and dynamics of the current lineup. As such, and as I speculated (and Nathan confirmed), the new series is probably best matched up with tubes (and is designed to accomodate them with the higher sensitivity drivers etc.). Whether the use of different tubes in my setup or in another all tube line up can take the sound further in the direction I'd like to see it go I can't say--having yet to experiment in this area. I do feel that the bass anomolie that I am hearing will not be cured by using different electronics. As I indicated, this is noticable only on some recordings (though more that Nathan reports in his system) and is, for me, a distraction that I find hard to overcome. Of course, my room may be part of the problem but this would be the second room that I have heard it in so I'm not so sure. Again, the D38 goes a long way toward resolving any problems in this area in my experience.
Finally, I thought I would share one other set of comments about last night's listening that illustrate the differences between the C7 and the D25. I put on REM "Green" last night and cranked it up. Now admittedly this is not the best of rock recordings--but that is my point--I have a lot of records like this that I love that are no great shakes sonically. What the D25's did with this record was very interesting. First, I heard so much more inner detail--things I have never heard in this record before. For example, the Peter Buck's leads had, literally, 30% more notes played in them--thus was the speed of these drivers. I could hear these notes within the layer of sound as I never heard them before. Astonishing. However, I kept having to turn the volume down (instead of up as is my tendency) because the glare in the upper midrange (guitars, vocals etc.) was bordering on unbearable. Things simply sounded hard, white and edgy. Yes, it was dynamic and detailed. There was an aggressive quality to the sound that is appropriate to rock and most likely the recording venue. But wheras with the Harbeth's I can go louder and louder allowing me to become more and more consumed by the sound the D25's needed to have the volume trimmed. Could I hear all the details before with the Harbeth's-no. Nor did the bass go as deep, nor were the dynamics as good. But on balance I'd rather be able to pull out a record like this, turn it up and break out my air guitar and miss some of the fine details than have to turn it down to save my ears. Obviously, as they say, your mileage may vary. I'm gonna keep listening to the D25's--they grow on me more and more each day. Perhaps with the right gear they could be the right speaker, but maybe not. Thanks for listening.
ndjedinak
6 posts
 
You definitely do not have the right electronics for them. WIth my chosen gear and tube compliment, I *never* heard a glare from these speakers.

The thing is, and people who haven't rolled NOS haven't had this experience yet: SO much depends upon the tubes you choose (not just the fact you choose tubes, although that's a start down the right path!). It is akin to a very good component upgrade--no joke. Those D25's are only playing what you're feeding them, and that's a glare-y sound! Your Harbeths obviously mask that.

Work at this and you'll get a sound that's got all the speed, attack, detail, and *musicality* that you want. The overripe bass (which would be a factor heavily influenced by placement and room) can be mitigated with certain tube choices, but whether it will ever become nonbothersome I can't say. The D25's when fed properly are nothing but musical, tho!
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