Harbeth 40.3's. Should I buy them?

I have 40.2 40th Anniversaries in a large acoustically treated 18.5 x 23 room w/ 9-12’ ceiling. They are 7’4” out into the room, 7’9” apart, and almost 5’ from side walls. I do have them on shorter stands (by inches). Even with this placement and treatments, I believe the speakers being lower to the floor is causing a bass issue in a particular range, so I plan on going back to another pair of stands… Oh, I also have the speakers towed-in only an inch or so. So this is not the towed-in pointed-at-the-listener type placement that may be typical for this speaker. I prefer the large, wall to wall soundstage, as well as tweeters not pointed directly at my ears…but that’s a personal sensitivity issue… 

With this setup and a 150w Wells Audio Innamorata Signature amplifier, w/ 200 damping factor, I have been able to get big and bold room-filling sound. With the right cables and the right articulate gear, these speakers can actually play bright if one wanted (at least within this placement type. Not as much pointed at the listener)… These  are chameleons to a certain degree, as much as I have been able to swing their sound from the above…but then make a few changes to gear and set up and they can turn to that more typical softer / more polite type sound. For instance, with placement, scoot the speakers 1/8th of inch back closer to the front-wall and the forward-projecting of the sound into the room is gone and the sound recedes all the way back to the front-wall and has less impact. Similar but different affect with exacting distance apart from each other and the side-walls. So, exacting placement is key IMO with these speakers. 

I did recently hear my speaker on a new 100w GaN stage class D monos w/ 2000 damping factor and it took bass control to another level! But they didn’t play nearly as big in soundstage and played with less forwardness and less in-room presence. I prefer the bigger, bolder and brighter sound, so somewhat lesser bass control it is for now with my ss amp. 

My point is these speakers, IMO, are more ‘tunable’ than some may think. But it is a very careful balance, that can go out of balance quite easily. They are top notch in transparency and refinement. Get placement perfect and with well matched neutral and articulate gear and they can really ‘wake up’. Oh, and I found that LESS bass traps, than other speakers may want, helped  bring the bass level down a bit. But I think the .3 is better yet again in the bass, over the .2. Just as the .2 is better than the .1 in this regard. So by design you’d have a percentage less issue in the bass to begin with.  
 

I have 10 pair of speakers......all sizes...all brands...all prices. Each pair sounds different with different types of music. JBL and Klipsch Heritage and Tekton for Rock.....Triangle and Maggies for Jazz....Maggies for Classical. I don’t believe ONE speaker can do every type of music the" best".....Switch your preferred speakers in and out depending on the genre’ of music you happen to be playing on any given evening.At the Florida show the standouts were Acora...MBL...Borresen and Focal IMHO....

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I remember an amusing 18th century suicide note, which read simply: "All this buttoning and unbuttoning..."

All this plugging and unplugging! I listen to up to 8 or 10 different genres of music in a long listening session. Changing speakers for each? Maybe if I was really rich, I would have half a dozen rooms with different systems (as different speakers require different amps, tubes or SS, room setups, etc).

I do believe that there are some speakers which are almost "jack of all trades" if not master of any one. If I could have 2 setups, it might be Vandersteen Quatro CTs or Kentos (or 7s), or Rockports (for even more $$) in one system, and then a 2nd smaller system with a lovely 2-way stand speaker (Harbeth/Graham/Joseph/or  ?) and maybe a nice integrated amp—small, simpler system. I've heard the Linkwitz 521 and they are magical, as are the MBL omnis, so maybe I would need a 3rd system! Oy. 

I do not have anywhere near the budget or home for them, but have you considered GR series Tannoys? Low to mid 90s sensitivity, GORGEOUS....most beautiful speakers I've ever seen, resellable, and just plain amazing. I too also own and love the Buchardt S400 MKIIs, truly amazing speakers.....not just for the money.

I've heard (three times) the Tannoy Prestige GRF and the Turnberry GRF series at a client's home in about a 15' x 20' room with 9' high ceiling and reasonable treatment.....were driven with ARC vintage tube electronics. Only speakers that made me want to sell my house. Take with a grain of salt, I've never owned a pair of speakers more expensive than Thiel CS 7 series speakers.

Upscale Audio is the distributor, might be worth a phone call.

I have the Allnic T2000 30th Anniversary using the KT170's.

I've written a review on this integrated stating that its sound signature was more like a class A solid state amplifier, than a tube amplifier. It is not at all euphonic to our ears. With 150wpc in pentode, could it drive woofers with texture? I don't know. Maybe. Last night we were enjoying playing music immensely, listening to the little Burchardt's in my main listening room paired with the Allnic Integrated, the Allnic D10000 DAC and fed by a Pro-ject RS2-T transport. As I recall I started with Neil Young - Live at the Filmore with Crazy Horse, then Greendale, followed by Radiohead - The Bends, followed by Bach - Brandenburg Concertos then Sarah Brightman - Haram, then company arrived. Great session.

That listening session had artists that spanned a lot of years. Everything that was thrown at those speakers and they didn't flinch, rather, they dug into the recording and presented it musically. They did cheat a bit using a pair of Adam SW260 subs, small studio subs that always seem to integrate well with anything they've been asked to do. They're like a great session player, "hey where's that amazing bass player"? "Adam is over there".

So you might think well why not a pair of monitors and use the Adams or better yet, a pair of REL's? Because I Macgyver'd the subs into play by using the speaker tap's as an output signal to the subs stapling in a few resistors and bam - output. Probably illegal in the high-end audio community - I know I'm breaking some electronic rule.

Point is that I steer toward full range speakers because I'm not sure that my "Macgyvered" setup is long-lasting.

As far as finding speakers for a particular genre, I sort of agree as there are plenty of speakers that are great at playing a particular genre, well, like the Harbeth's, or the Harbeth's of yore, because the 40.3's have that modern sound... But yeah, I need the jack of all trades it seems.

I had the Wells Audio Innamorata Signature amplifier and their owner, forgot his name, really good guy over at the house one night. We compared his masterpiece (Innamotara) to what may still be the finest sounding amplifiers ever made, the Joule Electra VZN100's. The Joules ended up being the darling of that listening session but Inamorata gained huge respect from my audio clan that night. I would totally own that amplifier. But I'm not selling my Allnic. 

Some years ago after a visit to Siegfried's home, I bought his design, the LXmini which he was using in his system. You'd think he would have all this fancy gear but not, a cheap multi-channel HT amp, a miniDSP using a program he designed and the LXmini's. Amazingly spacious coherent sound emanated from those little guys. I still have the LXmini's and the miniDSP but I somehow lost the programming and the miniDSP forum refused to give it to me. Need to circle back on that.

I have 2 systems, The Burchardts upstairs fed by the Holo May KTE dac, Acoustic Invader FET pre, and powered by a BMC-S1 amplifier. Then my main Allnic rig.

Speakers are tunable to a room for sure. Our room plays pretty clean. I need to deal with the ceiling (the ceiling that was supposed to have rockwool in it) by adding absorbers but reflections haven't been bothersome as they have been mostly tamed.

Well, I owned the MBL 126's. I drove them with a Pass Labs 350.5. They sounded great. I would say the only issue with them is that we often play music loud that we put a strain on the standmounts. Now the 101E would work. Let's take up a collection. The along came the Dynaudio C1's. Driver failed, Dynaudio blamed on my amp. Too much dc or something like that. Yeah, my crappy Pass Labs amplifier was the problem. $500 dollars later and no more Dynaudio.

I like Vandersteen. Nearly bought a Quatro many years ago. I have to relook at that.

Last night my wife and I sat down on our listening couch and pictured the Big 40.3's, well out into the room. It's just not big enough as many have informed. So I have to move on from that. Dang.

Again, my wife cares about the sound. I care more about how they look than she does! I mean there are some ugly-looking speakers out there, let's be honest.

Tannoy's are beautiful. One could be happy just looking at them turned off. Would have to hear them in person, I probably have for all the audio shows I've attended.

Buchardt's right? They're killing me, I want to grow them in size, and no, not the active 700's.