my shortlist for integrated Harbethsuper hl5 plus xd - please advise

i have said this in other posts about harbeths but i will repeat here for the benefit of the op’s

there is no right or wrong answer, we all hear differently and have different preferences

that said, i have owned many harbeths (mon 40, c7, shl5) and i believe that to give them the best possible full range, top to bottom response, they benefit from a pure solid state amp with strong damping factor/woofer grip

the nature of the harbeths is they do their magical voice thing (as a function of their driver material and resonant thin wall cabinet) but they lose resolution up top and slam and tunefulness down low without the best that strong solid state amplification can provide

you CAN make harbeths sound great down low with rel (or other good subs) but to my ear the harbeths sound a little too smoothed over up top with most tube amps

i do concur with @yogiboy that lfd's can work well with harbeths sonically, as those amps sound fast, pure, with good control down low, if you can live with their barebones nature functionally

@gryphongryph I am not sure if it came from Gene Rubin, but that's definitely a sign, that he carries both Moonriver and Harbeth

@grislybutter It did not.

I'm using Classe CAM 200 mono blocks to drive my Harbeth 40.1's. You may be able to pick these up on the secondary market. Terrific sound-smooth, no edge, plenty of spare power. This is the type of amp that Alan Shaw recommends=lots of brute power!!!!

You can’t go wrong with the hegal. For 4K on the used market, its hard to beat IMO. I have a Pass 250, Accuphase 380, Mac Ma353 and the Hegal. I can nit pick all of them, but it’s hard to find anything with the Hegal. Midrange is some of the best I’ve heard. Pass is superb, but $$$ and heat in a small room.