Still using this speaker after 30 odd years and I have owned them from new. They still sound wonderful and with the right material give an uncanny naturalness to vocals and Instrument timbre. They don't rock hard but with more restrained music they are wonderfully natural sounding.
The originals are still the best in my opinion as the 8 inch mid bass driver was hand doped and carefully hand manufactured but I believe were difficult to make hence the SP2/2 which proceeded it had a different cone material. I don't think it sounds as natural although these speakers can be driven harder. I also feel the same about the harbeth speakers incidentally which moved to the Radial cone material which was easier to manufacture and probably more cost effective than its predecessor. I think the HL5 originals sounded better.
Anyway a few pics of these beautiful speakers which although old fashioned looking still sound sublime.
[IMG]P1000208 by sy, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]P1000209 by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/162281319@N03/]/url], on Flickr[/IMG]