Ok, but the fact you think it always happens always is actually a red flag Even if break in happens in some cases, there is no technical reason (I'm aware of) to expect every speaker system to break in to an obviously audible extent. It's also problematic that audiophiles who even buy used speakers (broken in) will report the sound "changing" with break in. (There's no good reason to expect this, but every reason to expect an adaptation effect in the person). Except that "adaptation" (adjusting to a sound, and hence perception of the sound changing over time) is a very well known perceptual phenomenon, for all of our senses. (The first time someone tries spicy food will produce a different reaction/sensation than when they have adapted to the spice). I've had friends who have bought speakers that we both listened to "out of the box." Weeks (or longer) later they tell me "they've really broken in now! The bass is better, not as bright" etc. I drop over and...they sound exactly the same as I remembered. One of us has lived with the speaker over time and adapted to it, the other has not. You shouldn't mix up normal human perceptual biases, that we all share, with personal insult. My son was involved in a double-blind study for a new treatment. This was simply basic, honest acknowledgement both on part of the subject and the researchers, of the fact bias can skew the results (people who think they are on the treatment will "experience" symptoms and side effects they attribute to the non-existent treatment). And even the most well-meaning and well trained researchers understand that without good controls, they can fall in to the same misapprehensions and incorrect inferences. Should we all have been "insulted" that our bias was being controlled for? It doesn't matter what any engineer "believes," so much as what they can actually demonstrate. And a consumer should be aware of how the whole "break in" thing serves the interest of the manufacturer. It's a useful bullwark against speakers being returned "don't like what you hear? That's not because you don't like the speakers; they speakers have to break in, keep listening for a few weeks!" Well, then they benefit from the consumer adapting to the character of the speakers. And there is a well-known phenomenon in sales, a "foot in the door" effect, that if you can get the consumer to take the item home or keep it for a while, they will tend to hang on to it rather than return it, which is one reason why free home trials are offered. I think you would be surprised at the number of high end audio manufacturers who have adopted policies not because they themselves advocate or believe them, but because they are catering to widely held beliefs in their customer base. So for instance you'll have speaker manufacturers who do not believe in the benefits of bi-wiring producing bi-wirable speakers (otherwise they cut out some of their possible sales), those who don't believe in audiophile cables making sure their amp/pre-amp/DAC or whatever has a detachable power cable, and on and on. Adopting the "speaker break in" stance can also be useful in appealing to the beliefs of the target market. Though Allan Shaw tends to buck this trend Actually, you CAN save a bunch of money if you don't fall for too much of the audiophile myths and claims. (I've saved money before once I decided to do better controlled tests of claims made about some high end equipment). Not that you have to of course. And also, I'm not saying that I believe conclusively you aren't hearing some "real" break in. Just that there are reasons to be skeptical, as your own speaker designer has said. But...there are many people who simply refuse to acknowledge they could be wrong about their own subjective experiences, as Allan Shaw knows.... Anyway, back to the speakers.... I really find the Harbeth speakers do something that is high among the hardest attributes to find in a sound system: they sound "organic." Most speakers to me end up producing a hardened, electronic signature, but voices and acoustic instruments through the Harbeth sound timbrally warm and real-world-like. I remember one of the first times I heard Harbeths in a store an opera piece started playing and I was startled at hearing such a natural voice presentation. Fortunately I still get some of that from my little Spendor S3/5s, a similar soft human quality to voices, thought not with the last bits of detail and nuance of the Harbeths.
After logging about 20 hours on the new SHL5+ over the week-end- one word - SPECTACULAR! The bass has really developed well, imaging is excellent but requires a delicate touch on the positioning- but the vocals, midrange and airy highs without being overblown are so nice. I was listening to Heart Dreamboat Annie and there was a midrange based string instrument (cello?) that was standing out front and center in the title track that I had never heard before! it sounded so incredible. I have heard many Stereophile class A speakers before, owned two of them and why the SHL5+ is considered a class B is a big question I have.
I find a lot of the Stereophile ratings pretty arbitrary. Congrats on the the SHL5+.... I may have missed it, but what finish did you end up getting?
Yeah..who made stereophile the last word on what's best anyways? Enjoy avanti1960....and once again..congrats!
thank you. I got the cherry finish (see previous page) that looks much better than i thought it would.
Very nice Avanti! I am pleased that it is working out so well for you. The Stereophile rankings mean nothing. The only rating that matters is your own.
Speaker break-in is a an actual thing. Surrounds and spiders get flexed and they do loosen up some. Typically why bass tends to gets stronger with some use. Capacitors in a crossover I do believe can also change a smidge, altough this is not so clear to me as the mechanical change in the flexing parts of drivers. But glad to hear you are enjoying the new speaks. Sounds like you picked some gooduns!
There's a review of the SuperHL5plus somewhere (I forget which magazine) where the measured it and declared the Harbeth about the most evenly balanced frequency response they'd ever measured. Which is interesting given there is this audiophile faction who insist Harbeth speakers are "colored" and for those who like comfy distortion in the music. Though I owned the SuperHL5plus for a while, the last time I heard them wasn't long ago at an AV store, where I was listening to some JM Reynaud floor standing speakers that had been raved up by other audiophiles (they used a ribbon tweeter). The Reynaud did some nice audiophile stuff but nothing sounded to me tonally authentic. To double check, since they had the Harbeths set up right next to the JMRs, I asked them to switch the signal to the Harbeth. And, bang, there it was. It's like someone had just calibrated the "tonal colour" to correct, and now the drums, sax, trumpet all sounded "right" and believable, much more like real life.
I find my JMRs sound remarkably similar to Harbeths, but they don't have the JMR ribbon tweeter. I've had similar experiences. My .7s are listed as class C which I find absurd, while my Heresys are also class C and I consider that appropriate. My Silver 8s were listed in class B yet their performance isn't anywhere near that of my class B Stirlings. Sure, their bass extension was superior but nothing else was even close. Stereophile's ratings are meaningless to me anymore.
I auditioned the Offrande Supreme v2 a couple times and liked their sound better than those floor standers, sounded more tonally "right" to me and I can understand why people like them quite a lot.
I was trying various speakers to see if I could replace my Thiel 3.7s at the time, due to their size. I thought the Harbeths were excellent, it's just that my Thiels did pretty much everything they did, but better. (Hooked up to my CJ premier 12 tube amps, the Thiels were both incredibly clear and dynamic, but also lush, organic, rich and warm sounding). I bumped down to the Thiel 2.7s which were a better room fit and sound very similar to the bigger 3.7s, but I'm likely purchasing some Joseph Audio Perspective speakers to see how those work out as I think they are quite special too. The Harbeths are sort of like old Quad ESL 57s for me, in that I'd love to have a pair around just to put in the system and enjoy from time to time.
Sorry if I have already mentioned this: At a Las Vegas event, in a high-end clothing store, Audio Note and Klipsch shared an event, which they played LOUD. We had Klipsch Cornwall speakers and Audio Note everything-else. THAT was the best PA-sounding and "Live" that I have ever heard from recorded music. They played exclusively 70s rock that day. To my ears, Harbeth speakers have a totally different set of pluses, in the sound they provide. I have heard Harbeths sound very clean and detailed, and very musically pleasing. But they need more power than most of the single-ended amps can provide, to get the energy Audio Notes provide naturally. Harbeths are more polite, and less dynamic.
Yes just to remind everyone - According to the old JA Class A, REGARDLESS of price, is considered to be superior than any speaker that receives Class B. Therefore the Stereophile team believes that the KEF LS-50 is a Superior sounding loudspeaker to the Harbeth SHL5+ Mind you this is arbitrary - a while back Stereophile awarded the DeVore 3xl ($3,500) speaker class A (a mediocre sounding loudspeaker IMO but whatever - everyone gets an opinion - theirs' is just wrong. Anyway Art Dudley then went out and purchased (ahem maybe) the Devore O/96 speakers. This speaker was given class B ($13,000). I pointed out that that makes Art look like an idiot right?!? I mean if class A is better than class B and their reviewer BUYS an inferior sounding $13,000 speaker from the SAME company and all. What they probably should have done was drop the 3XL to class C or D where it belongs. But instead JA read my comment then in a later issue upgraded the o/96 to Class A. Although class A is supposed to meet certain measurements benchmarks which the speaker doesn't meet. How anyone with even halfway decent hearing could draw that conclusion that the 3xl or LS-50 actually sound better than the Harbeth Super HL5+ IMO has no business being an audio equipment reviewer or for that matter an audiophile - they should take up something else like photography that doesn't require hearing. The Super HL5+ totally outclasses my old LS-50. I owned the KEF - it's a nice speaker - it's worth the money and yes it's better than a good deal of the competition. It is absolutely NOT in the same class. Then again the B&W 805 got class A as well - which tells you pretty much all you need to know. Probably not advisable to take advice from the deaf.
Stereophile class awards are no guarantee of anything, other than making you feel warm and fuzzy if something you own happens to be up there.
I'm planning out my next set up new speakers and an amp, and I thought i wanted the the P3 until I went to demo them yesterday and heard the HL5 and 30.1. Now my whole plan has changed. The P3 were great, but after i heard the other two... If I go this route, I'm looking at a tube integrated. Either a used Line Magnetic 518 or Prima Luna. Will this work with either of these speakers? What are other using with these models?
This is every B&W speaker I've heard, completely dead and shrill midrange (quite an accomplishment to do both). I get why owners are constantly trying to "fix" (or adjust to) the sound of these speakers with things like highly colored tube amps using negative feedback.
How recommendations are determined The ratings given components included in this listing are based entirely on performance-ie, accuracy of reproduction-and are biased to an extent by our feeling that things added to reproduced sound (eg, jitter, distortion, colorations of various kinds) are of more concern to the musically oriented listener than are things subtracted from the sound (eg, deep bass or extreme treble). On the other hand, components markedly deficient in one or more respects are downrated to the extent that their deficiencies interfere with the full realization of the program material. Read more at Recommended Components: 2019 Edition
I haven't read Stereophile's class rankings in some time, I went to check what they had to say about cartridges and the list looks slightly more "balanced now". I remember at one point the class ranking nearly exactly followed the cost of the cartridge with where it fell in the class spectrum, ie priced from most expensive to least expensive would be class A through C respectively.
I demoed Harbeth speakers thinking the same thing as you - wanting a tube integrated. So I demoed Primaluna HP and Leben models. It was "ok" but not that thrilling. It certainly left me wanting more. So I tried a Luxman 509 integrated and didn't like it all - brittle, grainy, unbalanced - everything I dislike about solid state. Then I heard the Simaudio moon 600i integrated. Solid state, yes, but smoother than the Primaluna and had more life and natural organic sound that made the Harbeth's sing. Was very impressed and not debating whether to take the Simaudio plunge. The Simaudio was not even on my radar, and was the last amp I heard, so am trying to figure out what to do. That's is often how it works in high end audio, which is why demoing is so important.
Whether JA likes it also plays a large part. If he doesn't/didn't like it for any reason, it's not class A.
From reading the Recommended Components for years, that it is a collaborative effort. If say, Art Dudley, loves DeVore, Devore gets the level he says it is regardless of measurements. Most likely no one else on the staff has auditioned them. I remember being very skeptical when many years ago, the Harbeths I had at the time were listed as Class C. Heresy!!!
That's not the impression I get at all. I've noticed many of the list's synopses mention the reviewer considered a component to be in one class while JA considered it a different class. And it always ends up in the class JA chooses - always. Regardless, I should know better than to care what those dinosaurs think.
Was referring to using reviews as a buying guide as I have made the mistake of doing and as many others do. Wouldn't be a problem if B&M hi-fi shops weren't going extinct.
