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The Harbeth phenomenon

In my search for a new pair of speakers, I've gone through many threads here and noticed that many owners or fans of Harbeth have almost a love-like connection with Harbeth speakers. It is almost as if the speakers cast a spell upon them. I know many audiophiles love their speakers but Harbeth owners seem especially enamored with theirs. I am extremely puzzled by this phenomenon because on paper Harbeth speakers look average at best and lack many of the attributes that generally make a great speaker.

Their sensitivity of generally around the 86dB mark makes them rather inefficient and therefore, at least in theory, not a good match for many lower powered tube amps, or any amps below 100wpc. Their frequency range is simply inferior to most high-end speakers since they don't go below 40 Hz. This alone should, again at least in theory, disqualify Harbeth speakers from consideration as top high end speakers. And yet I've never heard anyone complain about their bass, while people complain about lack of bass in the Gibbon Nines from DeVore, which is a fantastic speaker. Their cabinets look like a cheap DIY enclosure (disclaimer: I've never seen a Harbeth up close, only pictures). The 7ES-3 is rated B-Restricted, while the smaller and cheaper Usher Be-718 A-Restricted in Stereophile but garners nowhere near the same amount of admiration, praise and following among audiophiles.

So what's going on here? Is this a big conspiracy plot by the company that paid off a few hundred of people to infiltrate audiophile internet forums and a few reviewers? I am of course joking here, but the question is serious. How can speakers so average on paper be so good in real life? I know the opposite is often true, but you rarely see this phenomenon.

Please speak up.
actusreus
willemj
1,036 posts
 
I am a fan of Harbeth: they are the only dynamic speakers that I have heard that are almost as transparent and invisible as Quad electrostats. My main system has Quad 2805 electrostats (plus a 400 watt powered sub) driven by a refurbished 2x140 watt Quad 606-2. My earlier refurbished 2x45 watt Quad 303 was clearly not powerful enough in the quite large room, and sounded strained. The 606-2 sounds the same as the 303 at low levels, but is more dynamic and cleaner at higher levels. I may even opt for a pair of 2x260 watt Quad QMP monoblocks as my next upgrade.
My desktop system uses Harbeth P3ESR speakers, driven by a refurbished Quad 405-2, and I think that is about right for these inefficient speakers in a small/medium size room. It was Harbeth’s Alan Shaw himself who persuaded me that you need power, and the more the better. See here for a thread on the Harbeth User Group, with quite a few contributions by Alan Shaw himself, who, I think, would know best what his speakers like: http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/forum/the-science-of-audio/amplifier-matching-mismatching-and-cli...
I know there are good valve amplifier designs, but with many their for me fatal flaw is their load dependent frequency response, and that is why I would never contemplate them. There are many Stereophile tests that show these deviations in embarrassing clarity. Their distortion figures are also a lot higher, so what do I get in return for more money, more hassle, less energy efficiency and a fequency response that sometimes looks as if an equalizer has been at work to produce that glowing warm and/or airy sound? An amplifier with a frequency response that has big and audible peaks and dips is not a straight wire with gain. Everybody is free to want their own tone control system, but for me neutrality is what I want.
pdreher's avatar
pdreher
1,241 posts
 
Understood.   I take a less scientific approach to audio and just go with what sounds best to my ears.  

helomech
1,850 posts
 
I’m a bit perplexed by the Harbeth popularity myself. I think they are decent speakers but to my ears, their BBC brethren is much better. People often describe them as "warm," "rolled-off," or "romantic," but I found they sounded a tad bright, clinical, and forward. Their tone is more neutral than warm, similar to a studio monitor.

AS has an obvious penchant for marketing, which I believe accounts for much of their follwing. They also have a much larger dealer network than Graham, Stirling, or Spendor.

Alan Shaw himself argues that you need power, and the more the better. At a recent show in Hilversum in the Netherlands the power meters on the amplifier showed it was producing some 500 watts per channel to drive the M40.1 during peaks in the music. Even Alan Shaw was surprised and it most certainly persuaded me.

Lol, a good track to play at high volumes if you want to promote such a fallacy. I doubt you'd ever blast that song on your P3ESRs.
rossb
193 posts
 
I use a 70 watt EAR 890 tube power amplifier with my Harbeth 30.1s. It sounds spectacularly good. This amplifier replaced a pair of solid state Exposure 16 monoblocks which produced 140 watts. The tube amps sound much better.


willemj
1,036 posts
 
The BBC research department  was sadly closed ages ago. For a few years their designs were still being produceed by license holders, but this gradually ended with the demise of successive manufacturers (it never was a very profitable business) and the increased difficulty to obtain the original drivers. So all that remained were BBC inspired designs, following in the same tradition of thin walled damped panels, complex crossover designs  etc. Some of these manufacturers marketed these new designs under their own name and as their own designs (Harbeth, Spendor) but the commercial people in the BBC decided they could make some bucks selling licenses to the orginal model names, even though these speakers only share the name, and are not designed by any BBC department. In the best cases, what they share is the design principles and the ethos of neutrality. But they no longer are the original designs. Personally I own both the original BBC designed Rogers LS3/5a and the modern Harbeth P3ESR and to my mind there is not a shade of doubt that the Harbeth is the by far better speaker. It is far more neutral, has  more and better bass (and almost no bass hump) and handles way more power. Manufacturing quality is also better.
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