what speakers demand high end electronics

Tvad nailed it. Shaw did not say that his speakers would not benefit from finer amps. Who buys Harbeth speakers and tolerates their suboptimal aesthetics, to achieve merely adequate sound?

"By stating that Harbeth speakers work just fine with inexpensive amps, he removes an obstacle to the potential buyer, thus possibly making another sale."

Most successful speaker manufacturer's work hard to avoid creating obstacles for willing customers, not just Harbeth, I would guess.

Its probably a best practice in general for most companies so as not to limit their potential sales right out of the gate.

Since a lot of what people like or do not like is highly subjective to start with it does not make sense for a speaker manufacturer to make any stringent hard requirements regarding what you use their speakers with.

As long as the speakers are compatible and work with the gear and the gear is not likely to damage them, that's really all that is required at minimum.

But I would expect better vendors though would provide more detailed information that can help to optimize results technically for a customer if one asks specifically in help doing this.

Or if not, there is always your friendly audio sales consultant. They can provide more unbiased product options to the customer. The good ones will do whatever it takes to make sure their finicky customers get the best bang for the buck.

"but fortunately most of us are also quite happy with "great in the areas I really care about, with the inevitable compromises relegated to areas I don't”.”

This statement by Audiokinesis should be immortalized. It’s the answer to almost every debate on these threads concerning "which topology, of any kind, is superior”.

Muse on this for a moment...This is the advice given by the Sonus Faber company in their manual for the Cremona M....The only thing we can say with certainty is that our speakers need a "good amplifier". This is the "advice" you get for 12,800.00.... So it is up to you to define "good".I guess they figure if you can afford their speakers for that price good is going to be,well,pretty good.Is that good enough?

Of all the speakers I have owned, I feel that Harbeths were the least fussy when it came to amplifier pairing. (Another way of saying this: Harbeths are less transparent to the source than other speakers I have owned.) So perhaps there is some truth beyond salesmanship to Alan Shaw's comment.

OTOH, my impression is that he is not like most of us; he does not think amplifiers matter much, high end cables are silly, etc. IIRC, he once posted in his forum that if anyone could demonstrate that high-end jumpers sound any better than the plain metal things that ship with his speakers, he would give them a pair of Monitor 40's.