Is there a point of diminished returns with amps and Harbeth 30.1s?

The amplifier thread on HUG (!) is interesting if only for the remarkably *wide* range of amps that owners are using with Harbeths.

I think the company went over the edge in the issuing first of the Anniversary series and then the XD series, both of which entailed very large price increases, one on top of the other.  I'm just glad I snagged my (regular) 40.2's when I did.

I had listened to a couple of Harbeth models some time back, and my impression is that they are definitely in the warm and fuzzy camp. It is such a subjective thing, and different people have widely varying preferences for sure. They do play women singer voices very nicely.  But to me I prefer a bit more clarity and impact in the sound of my system.

I’ve never really understand the usefulness of blind tests. Do people actually know what they prefer in a short listening A-B session? 

I agree that this is potentially problematic, but to be fair, such tests are not about preferences, but differences. In other words, can the listener simply and consistently distinguish between components, irrespective of which they may prefer.

But while the science suggests that humans have very short auditory memory, I'm with you on the value of listening to longer stretches of music in order to make confident judgments about differences in components.

@whipsaw ,

"In other words, can the listener simply and consistently distinguish between components, irrespective of which they may prefer."


This seems to be the main problem the anti blind listening test brigade have.

No one has regularly managed to distinguish sonic differences between amps, cables and digital sources.

Therein lies their problem.

I run my C7s with either a 40 watt tube amp(Aric Audio) or a 100 watt ss(Modright).The ss has a sense of ease when listening loudly but I can't choose a favorite really. The speakers respond very favorably to different footers and speaker cables. They readily show any changes upstream.A recent happy discovery is they seem to love large gauge speaker cables (10+).
Mr. Shaw seems sure that any decent 50 watt amp and 14 gauge lamp cord can't be beat.I joined HUG looking forward to discussing how to squeeze the best performance out of these boxes.Not happening on that forum:-)
And yes, they are warm and fuzzy but they can rock without getting shrill.A couple of subs and all set.