The irony is that Toole and Olive demonstrated (over and over. And over) that until listeners are blinded, their perceptions and evaluations of loudspeakers are fairly worthless. And here you keep giving me your unsolicited and sighted evaluations.
do Seas even sell 15$ tweeter? Everything Seas make is awesome and quality. Harbeth use quality driver, with relatively cheap XO components for sure, but its not crap either. and their cabs are lossy so gain some lose some as for RnD, I dont care. I use my ears, and Harbeth sound right The p3esr need a subwoofer, and a high pass to protect for over excursion.
Sorry...not trying to thread crap here, but these sorts of statements are so unbelievable and with so much absurdity that I can’t believe some people actually believe it. Out of all the speakers in the world, the person who wrote it knows this as a fact. Such statements are unfair.
Spendor / Graham / Falcon are sideway moves, which is OK. I suggest you give a try to ATC if you can get an access to their speaker range in US.
actually, i would agree with that statement about the harbeths. i don't find it to be unfair at all. i think it's true. palpable, liquid, low-coloration, magic midrange is an elusive and rare quality. listen to a pair of quad ESL 57s, if you haven't already. it will raise the bar and perhaps the comment will make more sense in that context.
i've been reading about and considering ATC speakers for a while. i'm worried they may be a little too dry and "accurate" for me, and not rich and romantic enough...but i've never heard a pair. which model(s) would you recommend?
Man get out of here with that crap . That statement he made was inclusive of all speakers in the world.
Well that’s cool....you can believe and agree all you want...because you’ve heard all speakers in the world....you are a very bright person.
Bec you listening the M series of Harbs, I would go for SCM7 or SCM11, they are a steal for the price and if you dont like the sound you can easily sell them without too much of a loss. Also worth to mention that ALL drivers are made in house which to me always an indication of a proper loudspeaker manufacturer. However beaware they are extremely power hungary speakers.
Coming back to the Lintons, after listening them for a couple of days, I am greatly impressed with all the faults ( which are not too many ). I am a casual listener and they are great for what I am using for. Late night, intimate and fully immersive music experience.
I’ve heard and owned a crap-ton of speakers. I’ve heard enough cost-no-object designs that I stand by my statement. However, I should clarify that I wouldn’t apply that statement to every Harbeth, and there are many, many speakers that I consider equal to the 30.1s in overall midrange quality. Some of them produce slight differences in tone, but in terms of sheer realism, as though the vocalist is in the room, they’re equals. I’ve experienced a handful that I consider better. No doubt there exist more, but it’s not often that I encounter one. Further, some here can attest that I’m not a big Harbeth fan, hence the reason I don’t own a pair. The only two models which I’d entertain a notion of owning are the P3s and 40.1s/40.2s. Even, then, not at their retail prices. I try to remain objective and fair as I can. I’m not afraid to trash a speaker I own, nor am I reluctant to give credit where it’s due. And in the case of the 30.1s, their midrange band, specifically, deserves recognition. I can’t say I feel the same about the C7s, for example. I’ve owned a couple 3-ways that had great midrange in terms of tone and resolution. The issue I took with their midrange was that they were recessed, and lacking presence compared to the rest of the response. Additionally, I found their coherency lacking, if not completely disjointed compared to my two-ways. I wouldn’t make anything of it except that it’s a pattern I’ve begun to notice among 3-way designs. I’ve noted it in brands like Monitor Audio, Focal, Vandersteen, Audio Physic, Paradigm (to a lesser extent) and Magnepan 1.7s, just to name a few. This isn’t to say their entire catalog suffers this trait, just some of their models I’ve experienced, the one common denominator being they’re 3-ways. Maybe the models in question had poorly designed crossovers, IDK, but it’s a pattern nonetheless. And in the case of most of them, I didn’t notice any significant advantage to their having a dedicated midrange driver, maybe with the exception of maximum loudness, the levels of which I probably wouldn’t listen at anyhow. I’m getting off on a tangent, so back to midrange quality. A speaker I heard recently that undoubtedly outperforms most of the BBC-derived 2-ways is the Rockport Atria II (great design that doesn’t suffer a lacking midrange presence or cupped-hands vocals), but those are $26K/pair, and their midrange, considered alone, is probably only a smidge cleaner than that of an LS3/6 — splitting hairs really. The 30.1s barely trail those two, though I’d need to have them all in the same room/system to say for certain. Anyway, after the OP clarified some of his initial statements, I don’t doubt his assessment considering his reference.
Hi Helom, look man.....Your statement was all inclusive of the worlds speakers....and I’m only including audiophile speakers. I’ve listened to many Harbeths and no doubt it’s a quality speaker. But there is no way you can make such claims in an all inclusive statement because you’ve not heard every single speaker...and there are scores of them to listen to.... Such statements aren’t fact but an opinion. Now if you limit that statement to your world, your experience then you should qualify such statements and let it be known, which you failed to do but, rather your statement is broad and all inclusive. That’s my only point. It’s a pet peeve of mine...such statements bug the heck out of me, and there is a lot of it going around. And it’s just not limited to the matter of speakers, we make such claims of cartridges, amps...phono amps....cables and any and everything. Yes, some gear is better that others, but we must have a context as well to make such claims. You might have empirical knowledge, but in this case your empirical knowledge false short and is more of an innate idea because of the context in which yo placed it in.
Sure, I could’ve better clarified my statement, but I figure if the midrange in question competes with cost-no-object designs, from the likes of Magico, Rockport, Wilson etc, it’s not terribly unreasonable to surmise that it’s one of the best out there. Wasn’t my intention to make a blanket statement, rather, it was to point out that the OP’s statements, though harsh at first glance, were not really surprising given his reference. I suspect most here realize that these are all opinions. That’s all any of these threads are, people spouting opinions. We take them for what they’re worth, which is not very much if we’re honest.
I’ve got MA Silver 8s, which I just installed in my system driven by a new Parasound A 21 amp. The 8s were previously used in a surround setup, actually not used all that much ... but probably “broken in”. Still evaluating them in comparison to a 300B SET amp + Triangle Titus monitors (+ sub) in a nearfield arrangement. The Titus is basically a single driver (5” mid-woofer 50Hz - 6kHz with no filtering), plus tweeter (with upgraded parts in the high pass filter) above that. Both systems have a common chain “below” that, based on a Parasound P 7 preamp. Not sure which I’ll prefer ... but the A 21 / S8 system is higher resolution. I don’t hear the issues being discussed here. Curious if the S8s were among the models you’ve heard. I know Kal R. liked them and bought them, I admit to being influenced. No regrets really, I like them very much. But possibly it’s like when I listened to my friend’s Rowland Model 5 + Thiel 3.6 system: AMAZING resolution, but when I returned to my lowly tube/monitor system it was ahhhhhh just sounds more musical. POSSIBLY for certain kinds of music (female voice with minimal accompaniment, for example) the Titus system is better. Other (complex rock) the Silver 8s will win. I’m blessed, I think, to have both.
Yes, in fact I owned a pair of Silver 8s for over a year, mostly driven by the Halo Integrated. The speaker did a couple things well, most notably it could play really loud before compression set in. Can’t honestly say it’s one I would own again though.
