NEW: Harbeth 40.2 announced!!

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Kkfan, May 14, 2015.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Art K

    Art K Retired but not tired!

    Location:
    Corvallis, Oregon
    If you are going to state what Alan states as fact, then at least read more than 1% of what he has stated on the subject. Most of your comments relative to the need for a "bucket of power" are at least misleading and at most irresponsible nonsense...verbose nonsense at that.

    I listen to everything from Chamber music to Mettalica and I have no need for a great deal of power. If you read HUG (which is a chore) you will see over and over where Alan Shaw states that at volumes most folks find acceptable 25 watts are a minimum number.

    The best matchups I have heard with Harbeth have always been with low to moderately powered amps. Naim and LFD come to mind. LFD may be the most frequently recommended amp with Harbeth. The dealer I bought mine from absolutely loves the combination. Then again he only has years and years of experience with the brands. What does he know...
     
    Rolltide and norman_frappe like this.
  2. norman_frappe

    norman_frappe Forum Resident

    Higher efficiency is not actually better imo.

    Let's quote the designer?

    "be aware that a drive unit is nothing but a lump of individual parts (cone, surround, dust cap, glues, wire etc.) that are accelerated backwards and forwards by the coil/magnet thousands of times every second. These individual parts do not 'want' to co-exist as a whole entity: they were quite 'happy' to sit on a bench as a pile of parts. They are not natural partners. But we have forced them to come together into what we call a drive unit. If we are very lucky (at the design stage and in production) these parts will behave as one contiguous whole up to a certain mid or upper frequency when mechanical chaos takes over: each component starts to rebel and even though seemingly strongly glued to adjacent parts, components start to sing or buzz on their own. And that's called mechanical resonance.

    Common sense tells you that a) it is only the glue that keeps them relatively but reluctantly linked together and b) the heavy parts have inertia which inhibits their ability to move (which we call damping), and the lighter parts will accelerate much more readily. But .... and this is the core problem .... when the music commands the cone to cease moving or reverse direction, the parts with less inherent damping are not able to come to a dead stop. They will bounce backwards and forwards just as a glass marble does on a hard surface.. And we can see that demonstrated perfectly in the other thread running here about driver resonances. What we see at the top end of the driver is that although these attractive units appear to be solid, indivisible and one whole, above a critical frequency they cease to be - the result is that the frequency response 'takes-off' as some parts sing extremely efficiently. Do we at Harbeth want our drive units to whistle along with the music? I don't think so.

    That's the long and short of it. If you want the drive units to generate tones which are not actually in the music, then find ways of stripping out damping from your drive unit. Yes, the lower weight will increase the efficiency perhaps by several decibels. And the resulting atonality may be attractive on music, but on speech the reduced damping will be very obvious. Can't add anything to this." - Alan Shaw

    You need a speaker with some damping or the cones will riiiiiiing it's simple physics. Alan has decided on around 85-86dB's to be the best compromise. I think the results speak for themselves. Whether or not you need a lot of watts depends on how you listen but he has always said that 25 watts will be fine at normal volumes.
     
    Art K and Kkfan like this.
  3. Kkfan

    Kkfan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Music City, USA
    conjotter and theron d like this.
  4. theron d

    theron d Forum Resident

    Location:
    Baltimore MD
    That video convinced me to not look into the luxman l-590ax 30w class A int amp! I listen to loud rock on ocassion and am only interested in 100w or more....currently using a luxman 505u but who knows maybe a luxman 507ux if a good deal presents itself :)
     
    motorcitydave and Kkfan like this.
  5. Kkfan

    Kkfan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Music City, USA
    They say, "a picture is worth a thousand words." Maybe we can amend that to say, "a video is worth ten thousand words?" :)
     
    theron d likes this.
  6. motorcitydave

    motorcitydave Enlightened Rogue In Memoriam

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV, USA
    Too bad you can't get this, or can you?: http://accuphase.com/model/e-470.html
     
  7. Art K

    Art K Retired but not tired!

    Location:
    Corvallis, Oregon
    First of all I don't buy the power setting on those amps. Second, this smacks of Alan the businessman who last I heard was contemplating getting in to the amp business. Please read his section on international business. He is the same fella that says that tampering with his design voids the warranty Then in private emails says that he doesn't offer a warranty, the distributor does and here in the USA that distributor contracts with a man to...yep..tamper with Alan's designs....for the American market, or so Walter says. I say buy and use what works best for your needs. If your aren't listening to electronica with the power setting at x10 you will be fine with far less power. Especially in a typical room at moderate volumes. With that I think I will move on and just enjoy my Harbeths with far too little power...lol!
     
  8. theron d

    theron d Forum Resident

    Location:
    Baltimore MD
    motorcitydave likes this.
  9. beowulf

    beowulf Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chula Vista, CA
    I've never heard one, but the use of MOSFETs throughout its design make me think I will like this quite a bit as my favortite SS amplfication have always implmented MOSFETs.
     
    motorcitydave likes this.
  10. Art K

    Art K Retired but not tired!

    Location:
    Corvallis, Oregon
    I hear that the Vinnie Rossi Lio sounded great with the SHL5+ at Axpona.
     
    beowulf likes this.
  11. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    I realize that the rules of thumb for speaker efficiency and wattage originated from sound logic, but man, "the chart" has never mapped to my real world experience ever, with any combination of speaker and amp. The best is when the McIntosh folks use it to validate their decisions to buy zillion-watt monoblocks.
     
    Gordon Johnson likes this.
  12. beowulf

    beowulf Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chula Vista, CA
    Yes those are more like bragging right amps ... OTOH I doubt there are too many speakers around that that a 2K watt Mac amp can't drive ... well at least I would hope not! :laugh:
     
  13. fuse999

    fuse999 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    I bought the cd the demo song is on, interested to see what it sounds like on my system.
     
  14. motorcitydave

    motorcitydave Enlightened Rogue In Memoriam

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV, USA
    I see. Well, maybe someday. :)
     
  15. motorcitydave

    motorcitydave Enlightened Rogue In Memoriam

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV, USA
    All reports show that this is one of the best integrateds in the market as of now. It's a pretty new unit, and I'm not sure all of the dealers carry it yet. Accuphase is some of the best solid state around. However, the prices are pretty tough outside Asia. Especially here and Canada. Nevertheless, it would be a great match with these Harbeths, just by comparing specs and what have you.
     
    beowulf likes this.
  16. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    I am actually not all that interested in what Alan says - it's the maths that he's correct on and the FACT is that the Harbeth needs TEN times MORE power (than my AN E) to get the same volume level (on ANY MUSIC) at a listening distance of 9 feet.

    To be fair "much" of the time I am not getting my amplifier over 1Watt. So even if I was at 1 Watt - the Harbeth would need 10 watts - my OTO can run the Harbeth for probably a good 75% of the time I listen to my system and so in theory you could run a 10 watt amp and probably please a lot of people more often than not.

    However, I can hit and do hit 25 watts playing pretty standard stuff like Sarah McLachlan. In order to get the SAME volume from the Harbeth or ANY 85dB speaker I need TEN TIMES the power - I need 250 watts! I'm not picking on Harbeth - it is just plain a reality in the same way that 2+2=4 - you can deny 2+2=4 and you can find 10 other people to deny it too but math and facts doesn't care if you believe in them or not. This is why there is a market for 1000 watt amplifiers because I can tell you - while I was hitting 25 watts and it was LOUD in here - it wasn't as loud as a LOT of audiophiles would want or often play back. Indeed the Harbeth nor the Audio Note are even capable of producing the levels some folks would want even if you put kW amps on them.

    To play the music I play at 9 feet away at the level I need it to play to - I will need an amplifier capable of hitting peaks at 250 Watts on 85dB speakers. And man I live in Hong Kong where my entire apartment is less than 700 square feet!

    I'm not saying people won't be happy with 30 watts or it won't play loud with 30 watts it will.

    30 watts with an 85db sensitive speaker at 9 feet will give you a maximum of around 90dB peaks. Actually this is pretty good for an average size room. You could play at 70dB which is surprisingly louder than you might think and might cover most dynamic swings - and remember that most amps are rated for continuous output but it would not be uncommon for most 30 watt amps to be able to swing another 50% of it's rated output. So I can see where Art and others are coming from - this is still pretty good volume level probably for most people most of the time including me.

    Nevertheless I would opt for the MasterClass and amps like it - if you can afford $19,000 for the Harbeth you can probably afford another $8k for these or other high quality power amps.

    We need to stop referencing the bass light models here as well. Bass is the power draw. You can drive smaller two way standmounts loud and compression will far less likely to be noticed. Bass is where dynamic compression is noticed far more readily and the Harbeth M40.1 (and presumably the 40.2) you're going to notice power issues far far faster that on progressively lower models in the line-up - even though they may be of similar sensitivity. Indeed, the OTO and Meishue are 10 and 8 watts respectively and I much prefer those on the AN K (which is only 90dB sensitive. BUT I don't like these amps on the AN E at 94.5dB - I want more power and the reason is the bass - you notice the speaker compress because it has significantly deeper bass response than the AN K - so the AN K is actually compressing earlier but the bigger bass speaker it is more noticeable - which is partly why they went to an HE version which gives the thing more breathing room with amps.

    Of course I suppose one could always run both a SET for the 75% of the time and buy a big ole high power SS amp (SS is the cheapest way to get watts) and use that for high volume party time.

    Regardless I look forward to auditioning them.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2015
    Kkfan and motorcitydave like this.
  17. Art K

    Art K Retired but not tired!

    Location:
    Corvallis, Oregon
    The constant sales pitch continues...lol!
     
    beowulf likes this.
  18. edb15

    edb15 Senior Member

    Location:
    new york
    Richard, you seem to be equating peak with continuous power. 85 dB efficient speakers will deliver 90 watts continuous with a 30 watt amplifier. That's really quite loud.

    High end solid state amps deliver a multiple of their continuous power in a transient. Amps with weak power supplies won't. SET's won't. But with a high end 30 wpc amp that has a robust power supply, you might see 100 or even 200 watts on a peak.

    Also, you need to adjust your math because the AN-E measured 92.5 dB efficient when Stereophile had the Lexus for test. http://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-note-e-lexus-signature-loudspeaker-measurements.

    Finally, you fail to understand the physics of driving small loudspeakers vs. large. Large woofers and cabinets will actually make sound out of the low frequency program material while mini-monitors will just waste the power they are driven with. If what you say made sense, then tiny speakers would have high efficiency but in fact they never do. Of speakers with dynamic drivers, larger models always have higher efficiency.

    When you compare the AN K to the E--same drivers but one in a small sized sealed enclosure and the other in a large ported cabinet, as you note the E is louder with the same amp. You prefer the smaller speaker, but that's not because the E needs more (continuous) power, it's because the 10 watts you have misbehave badly in the bass, and this is not only more audible due to the E's cabinet size, but accentuated by the port.

    If you don't notice compression on small speakers (or flea-amps) then you don't know what to listen for.
     
    back2vinyl and beowulf like this.
  19. motorcitydave

    motorcitydave Enlightened Rogue In Memoriam

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV, USA
    Or maybe better yet, bi-amp with the SET on the highs and mids, and the big SS on the bass.
     
  20. beowulf

    beowulf Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chula Vista, CA
    I don't think any Harbeth's are bi-ampable except for the Super HL5+.
     
    motorcitydave likes this.
  21. motorcitydave

    motorcitydave Enlightened Rogue In Memoriam

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV, USA
    Oh. Sorry about that. For some reason I thought they were. I was probably thinking about Spendor. :D
     
  22. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    There are a few notes.

    First - I am talking about a distance of 9-10 feet from the speaker 3+ meters not 1 meter measured with distance you need more power to achieve the same volume level as alan pointed out in his video - you can see the size of the room - big but not outrageous big by American home standards.

    Second SETs can also provide more power in peaks depends on the amplifier.

    The AN E is designed for corner placement - AN's measurements are taken from where they are supposed to be positioned - the corner. Stereophile's test is done free field (with only one speaker measured). Corner gain adds at least 3dB - 92.5dB +3db = 95.5dB. Martin Colloms (who actually has a degree in engineering) and was the technical editor of Stereophile and chaired the AES measured the AN E in his room as 94.5 dB 18hz -6dB. And he was measuring the non-high efficiency version of the loudspeaker. Hi-Fi Choice also got 89.5dB from the AN J/Spe in their room which has no corners) (92.5dB in corners and AN rates them 93dB). Impressively Hi-Fi Choice got 22hz-3dB in their room and distortion at 95dB never rose above 0.6% at any frequency - 80hz down it was a more impressive 0.2% distortion. My KEF LS-50 in comparison at 100hz and at lower volume has 10% distortion a fully 20 times more distortion at 100hz. (AN J/Spe - June issue Hi-fi Choice 2001) KEF LS-50 measurement at soundstage.com)

    Third - The AN K doesn't use the same drivers - the AN K uses modified VIFA drivers - the AN E uses Foster/Tonegan tweeters which they change - taking out the ferro-fluid cooling and changing the magnets, and they use SEAS for their paper woofers - I am not sure if SEAS also makes their HEMP woofers and the Alnico versions they have designed themselves and have made I should think but from where I don't know.

    Fourth - I was trying to be very careful with my wording - Noting what is heard over discussing sensitivity numbers of large and small speakers. Large speakers and large drivers have higher sensitivity (generally) and will put out more dB on the same number of watts. Generally, they are easier to drive. But sensitivity isn't the same thing as efficiency.

    See the LS-3/5a for a dead easy speaker to drive BUT it has low sensitivity. From an efficiency point of view it is superior to the AN E or the Harbeths

    Take like comparison - the The AN E is maybe 1.5 dB more sensitive than the AN J BUT the AN J/Spe is a 6 ohm speaker than never drops below 5 ohms (Hi-Fi Choice). The AN E drops to 3.4ohms in the bass (Stereophile) - and that is where the amp has to work harder. The 10 watt OTO has no toruble with the J or K but it has trouble with the E because it has to work a fair chunk harder to put out the same level of oomph to meet the more demanding load.

    I am in agreement with you regarding what you say here "one in a small sized sealed enclosure and the other in a large ported cabinet, as you note the E is louder with the same amp. You prefer the smaller speaker, but that's not because the E needs more (continuous) power, it's because the 10 watts you have misbehave badly in the bass, and this is not only more audible due to the E's cabinet size, but accentuated by the port."

    However I would argue that the smaller amp can't handle the impedance drop that the E lays on the amplifier - SETs like flat impedance. Bob Neil (AN dealer and Harbeth dealer on the east coast) noted that the Oto and AN J were his best selling combo (hey I've had the pair for over a decade). But the AN E which uses the same drivers in a bigger box and higher sensitivity IMO places strain on the amplifier. I suspect this is a reason the company started offering HE versions of the speakers but the impedance may still be low I have not checked. It also doens't help when they have umpteen versions of everything - you have the paper woofer, paper HE version, the Hemp and the HEMP HE version - the wiring is higher or lower in capacitance - different models have different crossovers to external crossovers and then there are Alnico versions of both tweeter and woofer which is bound to change something.

    I think Art is ultimately correct looking back - I mean the only way you can tell if any of this stuff is going to be loud enough or the speakers are sensitive enough or if it compresses - is to actually go and listen - and I HIGHLY DOUBT anyone in their right mind is going to spend $19,000 on a loudspeaker based on reviews or forum opinion. They are going to try it out for themselves.

    And I think everyone can agree that the best way to check is to simply bring your favorite stereo buster recording and play at the maximum volume level you would like the system to play at - if that means 3 watts is enough or 30, 300, or 3000 you will only know when you try.


    ART - I have to compare what I have. And I am not comparing sound quality because I like the Harbeth Sound - it's simply looking at sensitivity and efficiency. Truth be told a short time after I posted the previous post I went back to just delete it but there is no delete function or edit function after some time goes by. I'm not going to lie - Personally I see considerably more value in Audio Note speakers than I see from current Harbeth prices. I like the sound of both - I can easily live with the sound of both and in some ways one could argue they even sound quite similar on a number of fronts - they certainly measure similarly in Art's room. I don't think it's a sales pitch to say one very good speaker is $16k and another very good speaker starts at $6500 that is pretty much in the same level in terms of SQ is considerably less money and considerably easier to drive. That's it's own pitch.

    I like to get more (or the same) for less money as much as the next guy. It's why most of my system is Line Magnetic - sure I like some things better but if I find more value in it then I will go for it. I could have bought a Meishu for the same price as the 219IA for example. I could have bought a Dac 0.1x over my LM 502CA DAC (for the exact same price). I like the DAC 0.1x more on sound from CD - but it's not night and day - and the 502CA has vastly more features. I can always be convinced by something. But in the case of the speakers - one has to convince me that the Harbeth 40.1 is MORE than twice the loudspeaker that the AN E/Lexus is. It's twice the price and IMO isn't any better. Different, musical but man more than double the price and I ain't gonna run no 7 watt Empress Monoblocks on them and play hard hitting trance music at high levels - that I'm sure we can at least agree probably isn't going to happen. The 40.2 is now moving to nearly triple the price. Man - I'll keep an open mind because the stuff sounds great but three times better sounding than entry level AN Es. As a cheap bugger - I need lots of convincing.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2015
    Kkfan likes this.
  23. Metralla

    Metralla Joined Jan 13, 2002

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    A point well made.

    Likewise.
     
  24. Art K

    Art K Retired but not tired!

    Location:
    Corvallis, Oregon
    RICHARD - You are a reviewer. Have you not heard more than Harbeth and the Audio Note speakers. What you have also includes KEF speakers. You tend to compare everything to Audio Note and Audio Note always comes out on top. Great products and I don't have any doubts about it. However, to at least appear neutral, you may want to compare and contrast multiple brands. That would show a depth and breadth of experience that could be taken seriously. Knowledge is not experience. I could have read about a lot of things in HiFi and show up to every thread as though I know something about the subject at hand, and I may have read extensively about it. However, audio is an experiential hobby. One that requires first hand experience as a prerequisite to expertise.

    As you know, price differences are not directly related to how much better a product is or is not. Incremental improvements often cost substantially more, even within the same line.

    I have always gone out and listened to as much in Audio as I can. When I go to Portland or Seattle, the HiFi shops are used to the fact that I will show up and take in all that I can. For me it's part of the experience. One of the primary reasons I have moved through so much gear over the last several years is because I enjoy different sounds and want to experience first hand, in my space, as much as I can in HiFi. Especially among products that everyman/woman can afford.

    Anyway..I do tend to go on...
     
    Kkfan and raferx like this.
  25. smctigue

    smctigue Forum Resident

    Given the constant references I assumed Richard was affiliated with AN or was perhaps trying to be.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine