Graham LS5/9 vs Harbeth M30.2 and SHL5 Plus

the bbc sound relies on excellent drivers in a the lossy cabinet design (over open frame stands) and a slight depression in key treble frequencies to deliver an acoustic orchestral mid hall type of sound, notable for warmth and easy ambience, with very accurate tone and timbre

modern versions representing the bbc heritage take certain liberties and pride of authorship, so to speak, according to their sense of good sound and market demand

these nuanced differences are useful for those interested in harbeths, spendor classics, stirlings, grahams and so on... to my ear there is no doubt harbeths and spendors (sp series and current 'classic' line) slightly smooth and enrich the sound with their own fingerprint, making sharply recorded content come across as more appealing more listenable ... my own spendor sp100 r2’s do this a touch less than the mon 40’s but they both do it (and in quite a beautiful way imo)

this is akin to what good tubed gear have done vs solid state for eons, making our music more organic, more listenable ... whether a particular listener/owner views this as a good or bad thing is taste and system dependent

Yes, Harbeth more listenable with low listening fatigue although it sounds a little warm at times. Currently I am getting some brightness in the treble with the Graham with most recordings.  I managed to reduce this glare or brightness a little by using a warmer sounding DAC.

It's funny this hobby.  When you have a warm speaker, your want to add brightness to make it sound livelier. When you have brighter speakers, you want to tone it down. Having said that, it's all good as the LS5/9s are alternative speakers which will be used in the second system.

@ryder 

did you ever get the Gaia footers for your Grahams?

not too long ago I compared a pair of Harbeth 40.3 XD speakers with the gram LS 5/5, with the gram speakers having the Gaia footers. Since only one of the speakers had the footers, it wasn’t an apples to apples comparison, but I thought the grams were clearly better. The Harbeths sounded smeared in comparison. Not dramatically so but enough to make a noticeable and easily discernible difference for us crazy audiophiles.