Amp for Harbeth P3 ESR Croft, Brio R...

[Bourney]

Having down scaled slightly and dropping on these little gems, I'm looking for suggestions for an amp to get the best out of them. So far I've tried my EAR 859 - beautiful but not quite capable of driving the bass solidly, a sugden a21A kindly lent to me, again beautiful if slightly restrained and still not giving the bass enough definition and drive. A rega Brio R probably the best compromise in terms of overall presentation and beefs the bass up superbly.

I'm considering more powerful valve amps such as a unisis which I've owned before and loved primaluna and also the likes of the newer Croft stuff so would value any opinions on this and the Brio R as a comparison before I just buy the Brio. Thanks.

[Tarzan]

SONY TA-F940R, cheap as chips you may be suprised Steve, l know l was, my Harbs do not know what have hit them.....:rock::gig::goodluck:

[hifi_dave]

Unisis..:)

[Bourney]

Yes David!

[hifi_dave]

I need to check it out.

[Yomanze]

Try to find an LFD Mistral or Zero integrated? Will sell on easily, but a common match with Harbeth.

[Bourney]

Lfd stuff is rare, I thought I'd found one a few weeks ago but the dealers website was out of date.

Dave , you pretty much sell everything I'm interested in and you have a gem up your sleeve that I'd love to know if I can afford before I try anything else.

I notice you have an ex dem Brio R too! Bah

I'm going to call and nag you !

[Yomanze]

Lfd stuff is rare, I thought I'd found one a few weeks ago but the dealers website was out of date.

Dave , you pretty much sell everything I'm interested in and you have a gem up your sleeve that I'd love to know if I can afford before I try anything else.

I notice you have an ex dem Brio R too! Bah

I'm going to call and nag you !

Do you have a passive pre? I have a standby LFD PA0 SE power amp that you could borrow.

[Bourney]

That's a really kind offer Neil, unfortunately I don't have and kind of pre amp to use. Thank you though.

Dave is going to sort me out... I think ;)

[Elephantears]

You're not going to use that Almarro with the Harbeths are you? There's no way that will power them.

[IHP]

The Croft 25 and 25R I had with the 7 drove my P3ESR wonderfully when I had them Steve.

[DSJR]

I have no wish to once again be accused of shilling, but Harbeths of almost any vintage have been designed to be as benign a load as possible and on the current crop, not to worry too much about amplifier damping factor either - there are one or two expensive and popular (in some quarters) valve amps which have output impedences of several ohms which offer no damping whatsoever that can upset SHL5's bass in some rooms, but the whole point about modern Harbeths is that you can use almost anything with them that takes your fancy, as long as there's a bit of power - from experience I'd suggest 50WPC as a minimum with P3's of any vintage. Since I've only heard ESR's at hifi dave's place, I'm limited to the gear he stocks and sells, but we have used Croft regularly, Albarry (oh yes :) :respect:), LFD, 'that lot' from Southend (I think all three of their current amps basically sound the same, getting more powerful and vastly more expensive as you go up the range) and the c£2K Icon Audio models. The Sugdens I heard a few times all sounded too coloured and obviously 'over-lush' to me, the amp stomping all over the musical subtleties - IMO of course ;)

I'm not going to be a nutter and suggest that all amps sound the same, but I think I can say without prejudice that with any current Harbeth model (for example), the amp ain't going to be fighting the crossover/drivers with sometimes audible results, so amp differences may be smaller, should there be any. Despite/because of the BBC heritage, the music ALWAYS comes first with these and the designer spends hundreds of hours LISTENING in the design stage before signing them off for production.

Sorry to go on, but the OP has already decided on his speaker choice, so hope the above is helpful..

[Joe]

I am getting good results with my Exposure pre/power combination into the Harbeth P3ESRs. If I wasn't so lazy I'd try them with the Devialet, but they're up three flights of stairs.

[Marco]

Is that on the east or west wing, Joe?

Marco.

[Joe]

Is that on the east or west wing, Joe?

Marco.

I'm hopeless with me left and right. Hang on a sec ..... right wing.

[Marco]

Right, eh, and one presumes there will be velvet curtains present?

Marco.

[Joe]

Right, eh, and one presumes there will be velvet curtains present?

Marco.

Not in that room, no. The curtains are a sort of blue brocade material, and the walls are off-white.

[Marco]

Ah, blue brocade: the gentleman's choice. Jolly good.

Marco.

[Bourney]

Almarro is to try with my Reference 3As before (if!) they sell. Im going to go down the Brio R route with the Harbs. I'd love to hear a Croft but they don't come up used often and buying new without an extended listen is too much of a gamble and there's no dealers nearby.

Surprisingly my 13w EAR drives the Harbeths and makes a nice sound. It does lack a bit of weight and definition bass wise but it bounces along nicely and doesn't sound hard or strained. The brio added punch and weight but loses out in other areas. I will try the Almarro just to see though.

I'd been holding off buying a brio R as there was the chance of buying a bit of a special Unisis from Dave. But I'll just go with what I know now.

[hifi_dave]

Pity because it's sounding and looking good..:hotrod:

[Martyn Miles]

I use a Quad 34/303 combination with my P3ESRs.
After all the bad press by the ' Hi Fi Comics ' ( and I mean the magazines...) it's rather ironic that old Quad amplifiers are now sought after. They can be obtained at reasonable prices, too. I paid just under £100 for the 303 and about £50 for the 34.

Peter Walker would be quietly laughing to himself if he was still alive...

[Macca]

Steve you are local to me and I have a variety of amps you could try out. I would like to hear what my xtz would do with the harbeyhs. Anyway pm me if you would like to have a session.