My modest set-up (complete?)

[BhavikLDN]

Nice system!

[jandl100]

Great looking system

Love the creative use of the Lack tables! - if it were me I would drop the idea of getting a "proper" rack, there are much better ways of spending £500 imho!

Have the Harbeths satisfied your craving for a punchier sound?

[Simon_LDT]

Great looking system

Love the creative use of the Lack tables! - if it were me I would drop the idea of getting a "proper" rack, there are much better ways of spending £500 imho!

Have the Harbeths satisfied your craving for a punchier sound?

Well the lack seems to be holding up fine (there is a serious amount of weight on there - reckon at least 60kg!), plus it fits in colour wise so I have no desire to change that and like you say the money is better spent elsewhere.

The Harbeth's are just what I was looking for and I am very lucky I came across them as I was not in the market for new speakers at all. They have that tight punchy bass, sound very natural and non-fatiguing. What I also like is how good they are at lower - moderate volumes. The XTZ's struggled at this and only came alive when turned up a bit louder but the Harb's sound superb when listening late at night.

[Simon_LDT]

It has been a long time since I've updated this thread and quite a few things have changed. The latest addition being an EWA M-50 poweramp, which is an absolute beast of an amp. It looks so small and unassuming but the sound is so huge and open, it has the real heft and grip on my speakers I've been longing for.



Before that I was still using the Arcam P1 monoblocks into a passive pre. Jez Arkless built me a custom spec passive pre, with his buffer stage included so with the flick of a switch on the rear I can have it buffer or simply use as a passive. Lovely build and sounds as transparent as I've ever heard. It uses a Seiden switch and Acoustic Dimension stepped Attenuator.



Still using a Raspberry Pi 2 for streaming but have since switched from the HifiBerry board to an Allo Digione, plus picked up a 2nd hand LongDog Audio PSU (with dual 5v outputs, 1 to power the Pi and the other to power the USB hub).



I had also changed from Harbeth P3ESRs to M30.1s, but that was well over a year ago now (Feb 2017). The P3s still remain as they are now used as rear speakers for 5.0 surround duties. I also managed to source a single P3 for centre duties.

Very happy with the sound I'm getting right now, think digitally I'm sticking for the foreseeable future as I don't think I could improve with the budget I could afford. I'm happy with my headphone setup so the only things I'd like to change is phono stage and possibly cartridge. I have my eye on Jez's Transconductance stage so once I can afford it I will see if I can demo it.

Full setup is listed in my profile.