Are Harbeth S HL5's As Good As Reviewers Claim?

I recently purchased a pair of HL-5's. They substituted a pair of ESL-57 (Piquet modified). I am not sure I have found the best position in the room yet, but I am quite happy so far. The only area where they do not excel, in my room at least, is imaging. Compared to the Quad's they seem to process less well spatial information. In contrast to what some people said, I do not find them too warm. I think they are extremely neutral. And yes, I completely agree that they are not fatiguing at all.

I've owned a pr of the HL-5s now for about four months. They have replaced Thiel CS7.2s. At first the difference was hard to get used to. But i dont think i could go back to the Thiels, or most other speakers. I dont find them to warm either. very neutral, sound very musical, big soundstage, I use a REL R505 subwoofer with them and theyhave me considering moving to the 40.1s. I listen to alot of techno, trance, rock, jazz, and dont find them boring at all. They dont have the leading edge or imaging the Thiels had, but as a hole offer a nicer presntation. They have me digging out alot of LPs i had given up on and enjoying them again.

Prior to listening to Harbeth speakers, I have also read that they are warm and laidback. After listening to the the SHL-5, I have to say these are extremely musical speakers that sound very neutral and coherent. There is something really special about the proprietary Radial driver built in-house in the Harbeth factory that largely contributes to the fresh and natural sound of the Harbeth apart from the low-coloration "lossy" cabinet with removable front and back panels. I have owned warmer speakers which include lower range of Sonus Faber speakers, B&W Nautilus 805 and PMC LB1 Sigs(which I still own). I have also listened to the Harbeth Compact 7ES-3 and M30. The C7ES-3 sounded quite similar with the SHL-5 but with less scale and weight, and the M30 was slightly shut-in and warmer but with better refinement.

I heard from the dealer that a few folks who owned speakers that cost 2 to 3 times more than the SHL-5 had dumped them for the Harbeth after listening to the speakers. There are a lot of nice beautiful speakers out there that have razor-sharp detail, better refinement and imaging but few would match the sheer musicality and coherence the SHL-5 possesses in its price range. I believe the SHL-5 would be my final pair of speakers after searching for more than a decade.

I bought my SHL-5 in Nov '08. Similiar to Tom Hankins, I changed from Thiel CS6s to the lower priced Harbeths. I also use a REL Strata III subwoofer with excellent coherency and transperency. Their natural sound is very addicting. I listen to all types of music and they never fail to captivate me. Long listening sessions produce absolutely no listening fatigue. I've owned quite a few excellent speakers including Apogee Centaur Majors, Vandersteen 2Ce, PSB Stratus Gold i and the Thiels. All of them were very good, but none of them sound as natural as the Harbeths. FWIW, system consists of the McIntosh MC275 v5 tube amp, CAT SL1 Ultimate preamp, Benchmark DAC1 PRE, Rega Saturn (used as a transport), Linn LP12, and a Magnum Dynalab MD106T triode tuner. I'm listening to music a whole lot more these days. I guess that alone tells you something.

I completely second the idea that these speakers invite you to listen to a lot of music. Some hard-core audiophiles seem to be looking for the ultimate level of detail, for example whether a guitar player has large or small fingers, and perhaps some pleasure can be derived from that. But this approach forgets that when you sit in a real auditorium you do not reach those levels of details. Some speakers seem to me the equivalent of microscopes. Can you watch reality with a microscope all the time? I guess you get tired pretty quickly. In the case of audio, if you have a cd or a record that is not very accurate, if you hear it with an audio microscope all of these imperfections get amplified...and make the experience very fatiguing. I think Harbeth are natural. They reproduce music in a way that is similar to what you experience in an auditorium. As I said in my prior post, I think they could be a tad better in processing spatial information...but overall great speaker.