Harbeth vs JM Reynaud

It's all horses for courses when it comes to listening taste and preferences. The poster of this thread prefers the sound of the Harbeth M30.1 over the Compact 7 and Super HL5 but I find the M30.1 to sound too thick and shut-in for my preference. I prefer the more open and dynamic sound of the C7ES3 and SHL5. To each his own I guess.

The Dynaudio Confidence line of speakers are a lot fussier than the Harbeths as they require more attention in amplification. They are ruthlessly revealing as well. Good music will sound great with the Dynaudios and less-than-perfect recordings will sound bad on them. On the other hand, mediocre to poor music will sound pretty good on the Harbeths.

@Ryder: if a speaker sound too analytical and ruthlessly revealing, any solution to tame those extra details using preamp? Or it would be difficult to find such gear and do the matching? I see Harbeth is very forgiving if you just wanna listen to music, especially a broad range of music genre from your collection

This thread is supposed to be about comparing Harbeth to JM Reynaud. I've owned 3 of the Harbeths (Compact 7's, 30.1s and HL5 pluses) and had the JM Reynaud Bliss Silvers at the same time as the HL5 pluses and frankly there was no comparison. The JM Reynaud is the better speaker in every area at less than half the cost of the Harbeth. The Harbeth is laid back and colored and is a Jekyll and Hyde speaker. Sometimes they sound really good and other times they sound really average. It's happened with all 3 models.

The Reynaud is more present, more realistic in the presentation with more detailed bass and wonderful mids. It's hard to describe the sound of the speaker if you haven't heard it, but it is one of the better speakers under $5k in my opinion. I was so taken with the Bliss Silvers that I traded them toward a pair of the Orfeo Supreme V2 and now I'm in heaven. The Orfeo is a world class speaker and will compete with anything $30k and below. If you're in the market for a Harbeth speaker, you owe it to yourself to listen to JM Reynaud. I've listened to and owned many speakers and the Reynauds are the one I'm going to keep for some time.

10-10-15: Wim1983
@Ryder: if a speaker sound too analytical and ruthlessly revealing, any solution to tame those extra details using preamp? Or it would be difficult to find such gear and do the matching? I see Harbeth is very forgiving if you just wanna listen to music, especially a broad range of music genre from your collection

Usually we build a system around the speakers, but sometimes we do it the other way round in order to make the speakers sound the way we want them to be. In most cases, the room (acoustics) and placement of speakers will bring more tangible difference/improvement than a change in electronics. Having said that, you may consider different amps to tone down the brightness of your Wharfedale Jade 3. I have read the Stereophile review of the Wharfedale Jade 3 and noticed that they used tube amplification to drive the speakers. Audio Research tube power amp and Audio Valve Eclipse tube preamp. The smoothness and warmth from tube amplification may have formed a great combination with the analytical and detailed Jade 3s.

"10-10-15: Wim1983
@Ryder: if a speaker sound too analytical and ruthlessly revealing, any solution to tame those extra details using preamp? Or it would be difficult to find such gear and do the matching?"

If you want to build a system that you're happy with over the long term, that's not a good way to do it. Each component should be able to stand on its own without any help. The last thing you need is to buy a speaker and immediately after, start buying components in an attempt to fix problems. And even is you somehow manage to get it right, it makes upgrades a nightmare.

"Having said that, you may consider different amps to tone down the brightness of your Wharfedale Jade 3. I have read the Stereophile review of the Wharfedale Jade 3 and noticed that they used tube amplification to drive the speakers. Audio Research tube power amp and Audio Valve Eclipse tube preamp. The smoothness and warmth from tube amplification may have formed a great combination with the analytical and detailed Jade 3s."

Buying tubes doesn’t guarantee anything. You can still have the same exact problem with tubes in the chain. If you're looking for a "warm and smooth" sound, you can just as easily get it with solid state.

Looking at the Jade 3 bright/harsh issue, most of the suggested fixes, are in some way looking to cover the problem up, not fix it. Rolling off a speaker with other components does nothing to resolve the underlying issue. Most of the time, problems with high frequencies, comes down to a matter of timber. For example, cymbals don't sound like cymbals, they sound like someone dropped a piece of metal on a concrete floor. The proper fix would be to make the cymbal sound like what its supposed to. Do that, and you'll have a system that plays fully extended highs, without sounding bright/harsh.