Amplifier advice for new Harbeth Compact 7s

[Elephantears]

This is a very interesting analysis from Rob. However I still feel that what you are defining as an intrinsic problem with the SHL5 is ultimately room related. The major flaw with Harbeths, to my mind, is their somewhat disingenuous marketing; they repeatedly make the claim that these large boxey boxes will suit any medium sized living room just fine because Alan Shaw designed the C7's in a little 11 x 11 room on IKEA stools.

I don't hear any of these anxieties about crossovers, boomy bass and beamy tweeters amongst North American users, since they usually have enough space to accommodate large monitors. The Canadian distributor and dealer, Planet of Sound, is very good at recommending which Harbeth will fit in what size of room and offers some kind of acoustic analysis for his customers.

To conclude, Rob, can I recommend that you do a bit of industrial espionage one day and sneak in to a dealer for a demo of some SHL5s that have been set up in optimum conditions, with plenty of space around them? As an example, KJWest One don't have the best room, but its big enough and they can set up a pair of SHL5's nicely. Or just find an owner who has a really big room, rather than take your experience at Tony's place as conclusive. At the risk of repeating myself here and on pfm, Tony's room was not big enough for 5's. The Canadian dealer I have mentioned would have told him that and sold him C7's.

[DSJR]

There are dealers up north too, not just KJ and hifi dave...

By the way, before listening, which he spends many hours doing, Alan used to take his prototypes into the woods on a quiet still day to measure them. I believe he now has a rather impressive converted barn, quiet and away from the factory and with high vaulted ceiling, where he can work in peace. I also understand that he travels the world extensively, visiting his distributors and listens to what they tell him, as well as spreading his word.

I think that many of us in the UK are shafted by the rather small rooms we live in, which seem to give bass problems. One way of dealing with this is to use a small speaker with peaked up midrange and no real bass extension, that way, allowing close to wall use and no deep bass to upset our listening rooms. Just my thoughts..

[Elephantears]

There are dealers up north too, not just KJ and hifi dave...


I think that many of us in the UK are shafted by the rather small rooms we live in, which seem to give bass problems.

I meant to mention Audio Republic in Leeds, since it was Andrew who got me interested in Harbeths in the first place. He is a great enthusiast and knows how to match them. I mentioned KJW1 and Planet of Sound (Ottawa) because these were the first places I actually heard SHL5's with space to breathe.

You're spot on about our UK speaker issues. When I see the amount of forum swapping about of speakers, particularly with Harbeth users, I just imagine annoyingly shaped Victorian terrace living rooms.

[hifi_dave]

Rob hasn't, to my knowledge, pointed out any problems with the bass, just compatability problems with the PL further up the range.

I had several conversations with Tony at that time and he was happy with the overall sound in his room but wasn't happy with a 'brightness,' in the crossover region. This was easily ironed out by substituting the Quad amp but Tony wasn't keen on the Quad sound.

The problem was with the PL amp and not the SHL5's.

BTW, Rob is welcome here, there is no need to sneak around.

[Elephantears]

Rob hasn't, to my knowledge, pointed out any problems with the bass, just compatability problems with the PL further up the range.

If you're referring to my comments, I know what Rob said, but I was including all the standard room related issues people have with Harbeths. Surely you've encountered some of these issues ? I just think we need a proper recognition that whilst these speakers can generally be integrated fairly well in a lot of houses, and with many different amps, there are frequently occurring difficulties. They aren't integral to the speaker, they are contextual, but that makes it all the more necessary for these discussions to be very detailed. Really we could do with some room diagrams from different users, but I don't know how you would put those up on a forum. I don't think either Rob's argument (that there is an integral problem in the crossover region of the 5's) or Dave's approach (they work just fine with all sorts of amps and in all sorts of rooms) is contextual enough.

[hifi_dave]

I'm not sure what you are getting at ? Where are all these 'room related issues' and the people that have them ??

I have demonstrated, used and installed many Harbeth speakers in the average British sitting room and, to date, haven't had any problems, just contented customers.

Furthermore, if there were problems, surely some of the thousands of Harbeth customers throughout the World would be moaning on the Harbeth and other forums ?

[Tim]

Well if I can add my 2 penneth worth, I have SHL5's and use them in a room that's 11' x 17', so hardly big. The speakers are 2' from the side wall, 18" from the rear wall and about 6' apart - I have no issues at all, in fact they sound gorgeous and at the moment are supported on Atacama stands, so not ones that are commonly recommend like Something Solids or Skylan. This will be addressed once I stop moving and find a permanent home. I have also heard 7's in the same room and the 5's for my tastes are by far the superior speaker. The only thing I would add is that I don't listen at bone crushing levels and the volume control on my Brio-R rarely goes much beyond 9 - 10 o'clock.

I have never experienced anything close to what has been described in this thread and believe you me I did extensive research before purchasing them, by reading reports from Harbeth owners and didn't read anything similar from them either. So the comments being made IME are contradictory to those from other (contented) Harbeth owners. I also take a lot more credence from reports made by people that own and live with something, over a magazine review or 'my mate had a demo and said so and so'.

Harbeth's largest market as far as I'm aware is Asia and in particular Japan, where my room size would be considered grandiose compared to the average living space there. So they can it seems work in smaller rooms than mine and Harbeth ship to Japan by the container load!

So quite frankly you have me baffled as none of this is adding up to what my personal experiences are as an owner and I might add an extremely satisfied one. These speakers are not going anywhere ever as far as I'm concerned and the only thing that would change that is when I move to live with my father as his room is smaller, but I won't know until I try them there. If they should be out of place they will be swapped for 7's.

Now I don't consider myself to be any sort of an authority on Harbeth speakers, or what they match well with and have yet to hear them paired with a valve amp, but I think they are the best sounding speakers I have ever heard and I have tried them with 4 different SS amps. To go a little further, my best friend was an MD for Monitor Audio until recently and has spent a large part of his life listening to loudspeakers and ran their manufacturing facility in China. He was bowled over by how good they sounded in my room compared to a pair of MA GR60's which they replaced. He loves them and when he returns to the UK intends to buy some 5's, unless MA come up with something better between now and then. And that is some achievement as both him and his wife really dislike the look of them, but cannot ignore how good they sound (in their opinion). Come to think of it, I'm not totally enamoured by their look either, but I don't listen with my eyes. I'm not that fussed by the new Rega styling too, but boy the Brio-R is a giant killer of a little amp so who cares what it looks like, they sure make me grin and that's all that matters in my book

So I just wanted to add a little balance to the thread from someone who lives with them day in day out. I cannot say how content I am with the sound of my Harbeth's and wouldn't consider them to have 'room related issues' anymore than other large loudspeakers, unless of course I struck lucky in my room. I also listen to them for hours on end, which is something I have never done before, they are the most un-fatiguing speaker I have owned, which is also a comment made by my mate.

[Elephantears]

I live with them day in day out too and enjoy them. I'm not sure why anything I've said is so divisive, but perhaps its not my comments you are talking about. All I was suggesting was that we take another perspective; neither Rob's nor Dave's, which admits that these speakers need a bit of care and attention about how they work in a room; they aren't throw in and listen speakers. I can't see why that should get anyone riled, but I'll bow out here.

[RobHolt]

A bit more flesh on the bones might help.

There are three issues at play here - the intrinsic characteristic of the loudspeaker system, the effect of the amplifier driving them and certain aspects of overall performance that are absolutely critical to the individual listener.

When I heard Tony's pair of SLH5s, they sounded rather diffuse and odd around the crossover region, a mix of being mildly sucked-out and also qualitatively a bit odd. Clean 'ssss' sibilance sounding like 'shhh' is the most obvious description that comes to mind.
I thought the C7ES better in this respect.
Bass was fine, as was overall balance - it was just that narrow spot in the middle that caused some head scratching. One side effect of this was a certain hollowness on vocals - and we even used Harbeth's own voice test recording. The issues heard were not apparent using Senheiser HD600s (driven via the PL), nor do I hear it on Rogers 3/6 or Quad ESL63 that I have here.
I have to conclude, as did Tony after trying a number of different amplifiers, that the SLH5 was doing something that neither of us would regard as acceptable in long term use - for us.

On amps and the PL in particular, this made the effect worse than when using SS amplifiers and that will likely be for the technical reasons already mentioned. Essentially, it will have been slightly modifying the response in the crossover region and was mildly compounding but not causing the problem. To back this up we both preferred the result when using the 4 ohm tap, which has lower output impedance.

As for hearing another pair, I'd love to as I really don't want this to read as a 'lets bash Harbeth' post' - I like what they do generally, really like the C7 and think the little P3 is waaay better than those horrid 3/5a things. Just wasn't totally struck on the 5 and neither was Tony.

Something else to consider is that we both use loudspeakers which are particularly good in the area highlighted. Tony uses dual concentric Tannoys and I have ESL63s in daily use. Both tend to make you very critical of performance in the crossover region because both of those manufacturers have gone to exceptional lengths to optimise performance in that area, albeit in different ways.

Hopefully that fills in a few gaps

Rob

[Tim]

I live with them day in day out too and enjoy them. I'm not sure why anything I've said is so divisive, but perhaps its not my comments you are talking about. All I was suggesting was that we take another perspective; neither Rob's nor Dave's, which admits that these speakers need a bit of care and attention about how they work in a room; they aren't throw in and listen speakers. I can't see why that should get anyone riled, but I'll bow out here.

I think the question is 'who says so', it's fine to express something if you have first hand knowledge and evidence to back it up, but anything else is just hearsay and not something I think AoS supports? It's certainly not something I would advocate.