Talk me out of Harbeths

When I had the shl5+ I ran them with the 272/250. I felt they needed more power. I’ll be running the p3esr either with the SN3, the 282/250 or maybe with the chord qutest/schiit Valhalla2/schiit Vidar.

Yes, I share the same observation with my SHL5+. The speakers sound pale, flat and lacklustre with smooth sounding and/or low-powered amps. After reading all the glowing reviews of the Sonneteer Orton(the Harbeth-Orton is claimed to be a match made in heaven), I bought the Orton although I was getting very good results with the 282/HCDR/250DR. It turned out that the Sonneteer Orton didn’t perform as well as the Naim separates, and I partly attribute this to the lower wattage of the Orton. My previous experiences with low powered integrateds driving Harbeth SHL5 such as Nait XS also produced the same result.

Just feels silly to run a 2K speaker with 15K worth of amplification - hence might look into schiit Vidar…

Listening to $300 Marshall Woburn with $20 amazon source and in the garage as I type and it sounds great…

Now I’m curious. :slight_smile:

Me too :slight_smile:

Why not ProAc Tablets?

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Harbeth = ‘natural non-fatuguing’ voices. What I need for confcalls all day long…
Probably is just marketing hype though

Quinn, speaking from personal experience I would have to call BS that people feel more depressed in Seattle then other parts of the country. You can sail year round, kayak year round, ride your motorcycle year round, ride your bike year round, snow ski/board in winter, hiking, mountain climbing and be outdoors year round. It is one of the most desirable places in the country to live and the growth in the region and Seattle continues to expand.

I have lived in Massachusetts, Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Washington State. I have also worked for companies where the headquarters were based out of St. Louis, Chicago and San Francisco plus worked on projects around the country that normally lasted 6 to 12 months including Arizona and Southern California.

My personal experience is there are a hell of lot of more undesirable and depressing places to live in the US. Seattle is not one of them!

JMHO - YMMV

…and to stay on the topic of the thread, I would say jump on those Harbeths. With the system you have perhaps you should forget the P3ESR and pick up the Monitor 40.2 speakers. At least see if you can get a pair to home demo.

Best of luck with your decision and enjoy the journey!

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@MMky Baiting me indirectly AGAIN re my $900 (new) KEF Q50s! I swear, they have delivered on every upstream upgrade. I want to be ashamed of them, but remain underdog-proud. :grin:

Nice to see you, MM. Vitamin D3 is no joke, at LAT 47-ish, BTW. Ask your doc. Be one with us, into retirement!

Nick

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Rather LS3/5a than Harbeths, Falcons or Graham/Chartwell. Have a look at Art Dudley’s Listening 199.
Of course I don’t know if you already have a pair but if not it would make a change from another pair of Harbeths.

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The P3 ESR are lovely speakers , but they need oodles of current to sound their best .

I wouldn’t use them in that configuration or for that purpose,

I have them and like them very much, but they are a horse for the course speaker and I don’t think is home office environment is that good for Harbeth and Naim.

It ‘s very common at the moment , hold in there .

Interestingly, I did a number of comparisons of my very early gold label Rogers LS3/5as against my SL2s. Yes, in many ways a totally unfair comparison, but what I wanted to see was whether the LS3/5as strengths - i.e. voices, midrange and overall coherence - could be approached or even matched by the SL2s. In the end I felt that the SL2s were at least in a similar quality ballpark as the LS3/5as for voices and overall coherence, but also streaks ahead everywhere else. They were really quite enlightening comparisons and in the end I saw no point in holding onto the LS3/5as - although I do admit that an offer I couldn’t refuse from the Far East did mean I sold them on rather than put them away in the cupboard again…

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The harbeths do appear to be more popular in the far east than in England…
Maybe they interact better with the homes there and the aspirational marketing

+1

Graham Audio/Chartwell BBC Monitors

Oh gee I saw the thread title and I was going to refer the OP to you! :skull: You’ve told me many times how you find them BORING.

You don’t want $2-3000 speakers for Teams calls.

Have you tried good ear buds for Teams calls? I find them much easier on my brain than any sort of speaker. When the voices are right in my ear like that, it’s way easier to listen effortlessly. I kind of have to “concentrate” when the voices are coming out of a speaker, but with ear buds they are just THERE. MUCH less fatiguing. I just use my AirPods, but if I had hours of calls a day I’d get something wired because they batteries run out after an hour or so.

Yeah - I actually use a Tubes Headphone amp with Sennheiser 650HDs. Sound is nicely recessed and laid back. Still - hard to wear headphones all day long.
And clearly, this is just rationalization and justification for a spend that admittedly makes 0 sense.
Like a piece of useless jewelry, the P3ESR just look fabulous to me… Probably just a speaker fetish. :wink:

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Probably!

Over-ear all day would hurt my head. In-ear works better for me. If you’re itching to spend some $$, find some nice in-ears.

I have considered using Focal Shape monitors, to properly experience Teams meetings in my office, and express “who I am” to myself. Nobody else would know, alas. Too lazy to execute, so far.

Not joking, actually.

Nick

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