Demoing Harbeth Super HL5 Plus against my Harbeth M30.1s

using harbeth with 10 WPC is very weird. no wonder raferx preffered a more efficient speaker in the AN-E. you cannot use harbeth with 10 watts unless you enjoy amp clipping and distortion

many user say shl5+ needs at least 100 WPC.
must say, going from 50 WPC to 90 WPC with my P3ESR is even better.

 

Agree, my Harbeth 7ES3's need 100w to see their fullest potential imo!

 

Not for rock or challenging, dynamic music in larger rooms. They become a deal breaker at that point. I get the small monitor mystique, coherence and tonality, but not at the expense of everything else.

 

They can use even more. I connected my old NAD 150 WPC beast to them and they really opened up. Really impressive. I couldn't give up the sound quality of the tune amp though.

 

I can relate, I have a Peachtree Nova 220SE (220 Watts) (backup to my Rogue Cronus Magnum II) and its great with the Harbeth 7ES3. Really grabs them and controls. Excellent detail, not bright, musical.

 

I want to demo the Super HL5+ with my MC275...it's supposedly around 90w/channel, even though it's officially rated at 75w. Not sure it will be enough in any event. I'd considered ultimately adding a second MC275 and using them in mono. Wish the local dealer would let me take them home, rather than making me haul in my amp, but I understand.

 

Weren't you running your Harbeths with a 25 watt kit amp?

 

at first I tried with 15 WPC tripath, then chip amp lm3875 which is around 45 wpc. then got the sony ta 707 which is 90 WPC. the sony is by far the best amp Ive found for the harbeth and ATC as well

 

I can recall a thread on this forum where the OP asked for recommendations for a small room Rock system. One of the suggestions was an AN Oto paired with P3ESRs. Provided the OP prefers his Rock played by a solo flutist this would have been an excellent suggestion.

 

I sorta laugh at some of the posts about preferring this or that Harbeth - when most of the Harbeth people I know (including the OP) left ALL the Harbeths for different brands and are now happier. So whether Harbeth A is better than B seems kind of moot. And the folks who like the P3 the best are not really Harbeth fans since all that speaker is is a ripoff of the LS-3/5a at too high a retail price. The LS-3/5a is a dead easy speaker to drive offering minimal effort for a 10 watt amp - while the sensitivity is in the 83dB range those speakers have a maximimum power handling capacity of about 50 watts so the notion that the OTO can't drive it is silly - of course it can. And in the small room the speakers SHOULD be in is even more the case. The Sugden A21 (the longest selling amp int he world) started live as a 10 watt amp (5-6 watts into four ohms). And that amp drove these sorts of speakers. I would not use the OTO for any other Harbeth but the P3 is no problem nor are any of the other LS-3/5as. Granted the OTO is "gutty" for an EL84 amp with rather excellent bass depth and quality. The LS-3/5a is a piece of cake for the OTO.

 

Richard, I just got a pair of Chartwell LS3/5's ... brilliant speakers in that school.

 

audio note speaker is a rip off Snell speakers. who cares?
and now you think using 10 WPC with 83db speaker is fine. you are contradictory sometime. just recently you were saying how the more power the better in another thread about harbeth.
no wonder op left harbeth using a 10 WPC amp.

I sorta laugh at some of the posts about preferring this or that Harbeth - when most of the Harbeth people I know (including the OP) left ALL the Harbeths for different brands and are now happier.
yeah we get it, you prefer audio note to harbeth. I think everybody knows that by now, really.

 

Yes I prefer Audio Note speakers - but I said other brands - not just Harbeth. On other boards to ATC, Magico, Devore, JM Reynaud. I personally find all the Harbeths to be overpriced for what you get yes.

As to my issue with watts and Harbeth why not actually read everything I actually write because I ALREADY ****ING ADDRESSED it.

 

I think Harbeth definitely fall under the category of 'ought to like' (and/or 'bend your entire system to make work'), but like anything need taking objectively. I demoed the P3s (briefly out of interest) and M30.1s (for proper consideration) and found them impressive enough but not to my own tastes and priorities. Move on.

 

I have to quote myself.

"The LS-3/5a is a dead easy speaker to drive offering minimal effort for a 10 watt amp - while the sensitivity is in the 83dB range those speakers have a maximum power handling capacity of 50 watts.../... I would not use the OTO for any other Harbeth"

 

The cool thing about speakers is that there are so many awesome choices. I personally like the Harbeth 30.1 more than any other similarly priced and sized speaker. We demoed a bunch of options in our house and the 30.1 was the first and only one to make us feel that an upgrade made a meaningful difference. It worked well with a tube amp and also solid state (I use a Devialet now and they are great together).

That said, I could have easily lived with pretty much any of the other options because honestly they are all awesome.

 

Well put. My impression of the 30.1 was that it could be outstanding to some preferences/contexts, and it's great to have these choices.

 

and this thread and my comment about the weirdness of using the oto 10wpc is because the OP didnt use his Oto with the P3ESR but with shl5+ and 30.1

and since I have P3esr, for me, no way 10 wpc would be fine as well. my 12 wpc tripath and even my 25 watts cyrus sucked with p3

 

Oooh snap!

 

Watts aren't created equally - Tube amps are often subjectively equivalent to SS amps at three times the number - Some amps have very good bass while other amps at 8 times the power sound shrill and lack weight. The fact that people are buying amps based on the watts almost gives me a migraine. It's like buying camera quality on pixel counts.

 

I just tried a SET consonance billie 300b 9 WPC with amphion one18 which are 85 db/w. the amp couldnt drive them at all.
but youll tell me that the 10 WPC oto would be fine with 83 db/w P3ESR.

I just disagree

 

Watts are equal, it is a measurement that has no room for subjective interpretation. It's like saying this US dollar bill has less value than this other US dollar bill because I think it does. The impedance curve of the speakers may make some higher or lower output impedance amps react differently at different frequencies. If you model a solid state amp to have a higher output impedance it will alter the frequency response as well. The gain of the amp may also make one amp sound louder than another at a particular volume level which has nothing to do with its power (watts).

 

I have a bit of a problem with the statement that Harbeth speakers are "overpriced for what you get." Without explanation of what this means, it implies a number of things that are a bit unfair. Overpriced implies a kind of rip off, not just that the item disagrees with one's personal preference in sound. Is it "overpriced" because there is not much "there" there--no exotic graphene impregnated cone material, CNC-machined aircraft grade aluminum cabinet structure designed by a NASA engineer, etc.? If those kind of engineering inputs are he measure, then clearly Audio Note speakers would be incredibly overpriced--thin, cheap boxes, simple and cheap drivers (just two per side), etc. If it is the resulting sound that matters, then it is simply the case that one prefers the sound of the Audio Note speakers, not that one is overpriced, and the other is not. Perhaps a minor quibble on my part, but, a lot is implied by the use of the "overpriced" description.

A local dealer has pretty much the full range of Harbeth speakers and quite a few of the Audio Note line. I have heard both lines on comparable equipment. The dealer specializes in low-powered tube gear, although I've heard the Harbeth speakers coupled to higher-powered tube gear in this shop. I find the Super HL5+ to be somewhat the outlier in the line--it is more "modern" in sound, in the sense that it more closely resembles other brands' high-end speaker sound, while the others tend toward an old school sound. I don't like that slight sibilant edginess in the upper midrange that I hear in most of their line (40.2 being the exception), but, overall, I like the sound. By contrast, the Audio Note stuff is overtly warmer and richer in the midbass, even the higher end stuff has loose, flabby bass, no "real" deep bass and none of their speakers can play at ear-bleed levels. But, they are so engaging and musically satisfying the other "issues" really don't matter to me. My preference is for the Audio Note stuff (although the 40.2 sound pretty good to me too), but, I don't think anyone is ripped-off or fooled by liking Harbeth more. It is a bit interesting how buyers at this store differ. The dealer says that a lot of people come in to hear the Harbeths to confirm that they sound good (particularly the 30s) and buy without considering anything else. But, those that are not already inclined in one direction or another tend to end up liking the Audio Note line more.

On the power issue, I've heard the 30.1s and 40.2s on quite low-powered amps, and they sounded pretty good. Does the sound suffer a bit when things get loud? Yes, but, again for my taste, I would sacrifice high-volume performance for better lower volume performance. I just don't like the sound of most higher-powered amps, particularly high-powered tube amps. That does perhaps, give a slight nod to the Audio Note speakers, because they are a bit easier to drive, but, then again, even the big AN-E really can't play that loudly while the 40.2s certainly can, with enough power. As to the tube watt vs. solid state watt issue, I suspect that, speakers seem to come alive and sound meaty at much lower volume with good tube amps so they seem louder when they are not. I find you have to crank the volume up a bit with most solid state amps or they sound lifeless an thin in body. My problem with higher-powered tube gear is that most of them have a hard, brittle sound compared to the lower-powered stuff. If I owned Harbeth speakers, I would probably be inclined to go with low-powered tubes and accept the small tradeoff of lower volume limits and somewhat sloppy bass.

 

What does this have to do with Harbeth? LS-3/5a came out at a time when most amps in Britain were around 10 watts. Do you understand the role of impedance on amplifiers. Apparently you don't. Do you understand that the maximum power handling of the specific Harbeth (P3ESR) is only 50 watts. Using a 5000 watt amplifiers will get you ZERO more than an amp of 50 watts with this SPECIFIC Harbeth. Sensitivity is a distant second consideration. A 110 db sensitive speaker at 0.05ohms is far more difficult to drive than a 78dB sensitive speaker that is 16 ohms.

Further the OTO is a Single Ended Pentode with some feedback - most 300b DHT are not as "powerful" sounding - it's the reason I am not a big fan of the 300B DHT. I understand why Peter Qvortrup the head of Audio Note prefers the 211, 2A3 and 45 much more than the 300B. I have directly compared their 300B and 2A3 and whilst on paper they carry about the same watts the difference in sound is rather astonishing.

 

Not perceptually they're not. A 6dB is double the volume level from one speaker to the next but it takes 10dB to be perceived by the human ear to be "double the level"

With tube amp watts and SS amp watts this is also the case mainly due to the way the tube amp distorts when being pushed beyond limits. SS hard clips - tube amps typically soft clips so you can play a tube amp louder before the human ear finds it unacceptable. The gain is irrelevant - yes some amps have high early gain when talking about the position of the volume knob but that's not really the point. You can simply measure the volume level pushing the SS amp to where it very audibly clips and the same watts on the tube amps and hear how it clips. Of course you need a speaker that won't blow under such a test as speakers dislike distortion.

You are of course correct - a watt is a watt - but I am talking about the human ear's perception of the watt and tubes distort differently resulting in higher degrees of perceptual loudness from them than SS. This was tested to some degree here Tubes Do Something Special »