Harbeth 30.1, 30.2, XD

@speakermaster
“ …I would stick with the old model newer speakers tend to sound thin and bright with the sound all about the soundstage and not about natural tone or a musical tone…”

Not so in my audition circumstance.

I heard them in an A-B bake-off with the old 30.1 (pre-owned) against the new 30.2 XD in a couple of solid state systems… a $10K and a $25K system.., in both, the new model was an incremental step-up in audio performance. There was nothing thin or bright or compromised “natural tone / musical tone” in the new model.

What was witnessed was that the better the upstream components (and price strata ….) = the added incremental refined audio improvements. No surprise there.

@arafiq No I haven't updated my system page yet... too many recent changes... and I don't even have the LS5/9s anymore... having upgraded in a big way to Graham's LS5/5s.  They are incredible, but LS5/9s would be my choice for a smaller room.

The Graham LS5/5 is a fascinating speaker.
https://www.grahamaudio.co.uk/products/ls55/

@redwoodaudio  You are the first person I've encountered to have heard them and actually own them!

In the impossibility of me auditioning them, I ended up with Harbeth 40.2s, which I'm enjoying very much.

LS5/5s are ridiculously good. That's a future purchase for sure, job willing.

@twoleftears and @dhcod - I had to buy the LS5/5s without an audition. I was auditioning another interesting speaker as a potential upgrade to the LS5/9s (Wolf von Langa SONs) and wasn’t totally sold on the sound in my system. I ended up speaking with Erik from Gig Harbor Audio in Washington by phone who told me how good the LS5/5s are, but said that they were in such short supply that he couldn’t let me audition it without purchasing it. I went back and forth, ultimately taking a gamble on a new pair in Cherry (serial number 42) that was arriving a few days later to his store (he gave me a nice trade-in for the LS5/9s, though). The LS5/5s are virtually without flaw in my few weeks with them, sitting on top of custom stands from Gig Harbor, with footers by Isoacoustics on the stands. They’ll play any type of music, have a rich smoothness that has to be heard to be believed, and disappear completely with the right recording and amplification. They also look great (with the grills on) in my room. For $18k, they’ll be my reference for a while...  I've never heard the Harbeth 40.2s but I'm sure they're incredible too.