Harbeth Owners - What do you think?

I am familiar with the HUG and have read it from time to time.

I'm using a First Sound preamp and Rowland 201 monoblock amplifiers, with Audience AU24 single-wire speaker cable. Might be overkill.

Dodge, sorry if this was mentioned before, but Harbeth introduced some new floorstanders at CES last month. Have you considered those?

Drubin. I am drooling at the thought. However, if you follow the HUG posts Alan Shaw seems to have some serious reservations about building a floorstander that can compete sonically with the monitors. He is all about panel resonances and seems to feel that they cannot be controlled in a long panel floorstanding design. I have to give some serious consideration to this because I have come to believe that the transparancy and lack of boxy colorations found in my C7's (and your HL5) are due to the lossy cabinet construction. It also has driven me toward looking for floorstanders that have employed some unique methods of controlling panel resonances (beyond ever thicker MDF!). Thus, speakers like the Wilson Bensch Curve or the Vandersteen 5's or the Wilson Sophias are all at the top of my list. I have heard all but the Curves and think they are excellent, open and transparant sounding speakers. The only traditionally built speakers I am still considering are the Focus Audio 788/888's and the Proacs. Bottom line, if Harbeth manages to work out the cabinet issues this could be an extraordinary speaker. It has two 8" Radial woofers and a new 6" Radial midrange. The possibilites are really great but this needs to be followed a bit further. Thanks for the suggestion. Can't wait to hear your reaction to the HL5's!
p.s I'm not familiar with your electronics but the Rowland monos I suspect have lots of juice. I've seen them before, I believe. Very tiny right?

Correct, they are "petite". the First Sound is one of the truly great tube linestages.

Have you listened at all to ATC speakers? They make a smallish floorstander.

Drubin. I listened to the SCM 35 as part of my search. Nice speaker. Nothing extraordinary there, IMHO. The Harbeth's are better by a significant margin. I'm trying to find something that will exceed the Harbeth's by a good margin--otherwise, why bother? The ATC has that nice midrange dome but I think it sounds better coupled to their monitor designs, like the SC50 or 100 which I heard while I was in England and like a lot. Again, however, these are big box monitors that don't move me toward the more wife friendly appearance I'm looking for. Thanks so much for your interest and please, keep making suggestions!

Drubin - Your accessment of the ProAcs is like mine. I absolutely loved their musicality and ability to draw me in for hours but ultimately wanted more inner resolution, but this took over 7 years to happen! I think it may be the large cabinet like you said and am very curious about the Harbeths in this regard. I'm trying to find some way to audition the 30s and would be willing to pay shipping both ways (no dealer in area) if need be.