Harbeth Monitor 30 Speaker Review

[tuga]

I seem to remember Shaw talking about the human voice being his main reference, and comparing the sound of his speakers with real voices.

This part, in my view, is just salesman talk.

I'm not even sure Shaw's ever design any Hrabeth speakers. I knw that Derek Hughes colaborated with him after selling and leaving Spendor, and recently Shaw snatched Terry Miles who use to work as an engineer for that same company.
Shaw's training is in business and he is very good at it.

 

[MattHooper]

This part, in my view, is just salesman talk.

I'm not even sure Shaw's ever design any Hrabeth speakers. I knw that Derek Hughes colaborated with him after selling and leaving Spendor, and recently Shaw snatched Terry Miles who use to work as an engineer for that same company.
Shaw's training is in business and he is very good at it.

Sure could be. But it also doesn't follow that since Shaw runs the company and is the spokesman, that it isn't in fact how he thinks of his loudspeakers and his goals for them. In fact, I don't see any particular reason to doubt it.

In any case, I've found that the claim tracks quite well with what I hear in the Harbeth speakers.

 

[DSJR]

This part, in my view, is just salesman talk.

I'm not even sure Shaw's ever design any Hrabeth speakers. I knw that Derek Hughes colaborated with him after selling and leaving Spendor, and recently Shaw snatched Terry Miles who use to work as an engineer for that same company.
Shaw's training is in business and he is very good at it.

I think - I KNOW you're wrong there. Derek Hughes helped with the 12" M40.1 bass unit I believe. Terry Miles was reportedly stunned with the facilities Harbeth have for speaker design compared to what's left of Spendor, which apparently has been sharing not-well matched drivers in their later product revisions and boosting the upper midrange in a not hugely subtle way to make them stand out more. I've seen Alan's early speaker work - all documented - and I can pretty well state he doesn't farm it all out to others (he's even now properly employing the chap who did the research on the 'Radial' cone material he told 'us' in a post. Sure he's a marketing led individual, that's how they've done so bloody well for all these years since he bought what was left of the original business! There are other engineers on board too which stay in the background and as Alan's the same age as me and arguably looking to retirement of some kind in the not so distant future, I'd say that's a good idea if these people can become absorbed in the company ethos and move the brand forward. if there's an expertise you need as a manufacturer, go out and get someone with it if the money's there to employ them!

I don't know why I'm defending the 'H' Word' so vigorously, but there's a kind of not so subtle hateful or jealousy based resentment going around here and there and I don't think it's entirely justified or fair to be honest... There's hundreds of speakers out there to tempt your auditory taste buds and of course here, Genelec and Neumann are the main buzzwords here, with a handful of others of course to set pulses racing where state of the art sound reproduction is concerned, both in studio and at home. Few of these can be so easily heard at a domestic dealer though, so are largely unknown away from the likes of here.

 

[Waxx]

This part, in my view, is just salesman talk.

I'm not even sure Shaw's ever design any Hrabeth speakers. I knw that Derek Hughes colaborated with him after selling and leaving Spendor, and recently Shaw snatched Terry Miles who use to work as an engineer for that same company.
Shaw's training is in business and he is very good at it.

The thing is, it does not matter as the speakers do what he says they do. They are very easy to the ear as they sound natural, even if the measurements are not that perfect. And his target public want that and no fuss. It's the same reason they make them very easy to drive by any amplifier, and especially by mainstream amps that are reasonable priced. They are like Volvo or Volkswagen cars, not the best or most refined arround, but reasonable priced within the market, reliable and everything works like it should and is very easy to use.

These speakers are not targetted at the typical ASR public, that mainly exist off technical minded people and try to find the ultimate. They are for a general public that wants a good sounding (to their ears) easy to listen speaker that is easy to drive and doesn't cost a fortune or draw to much attention to itself. It's only recently they came into fashion by a certain group of audiophiles. The type that are also bashed for longtime on the user's forum by Shaw for the snake oil stuff they defend. But still today, the majority of the people who buy this kind of speakers are music lovers who don't want to think about the technical side of it, they want a "set and forget" speaker that will last a lifetime ideally...

 

[tuga]

I think - I KNOW you're wrong there. Derek Hughes helped with the 12" M40.1 bass unit I believe. Terry Miles was reportedly stunned with the facilities Harbeth have for speaker design compared to what's left of Spendor, which apparently has been sharing not-well matched drivers in their later product revisions and boosting the upper midrange in a not hugely subtle way to make them stand out more. I've seen Alan's early speaker work - all documented - and I can pretty well state he doesn't farm it all out to others (he's even now properly employing the chap who did the research on the 'Radial' cone material he told 'us' in a post. Sure he's a marketing led individual, that's how they've done so bloody well for all these years since he bought what was left of the original business! There are other engineers on board too which stay in the background and as Alan's the same age as me and arguably looking to retirement of some kind in the not so distant future, I'd say that's a good idea if these people can become absorbed in the company ethos and move the brand forward. if there's an expertise you need as a manufacturer, go out and get someone with it if the money's there to employ them!

I don't know why I'm defending the 'H' Word' so vigorously, but there's a kind of not so subtle hateful or jealousy based resentment going around here and there and I don't think it's entirely justified or fair to be honest... There's hundreds of speakers out there to tempt your auditory taste buds and of course here, Genelec and Neumann are the main buzzwords here, with a handful of others of course to set pulses racing where state of the art sound reproduction is concerned, both in studio and at home. Few of these can be so easily heard at a domestic dealer though, so are largely unknown away from the likes of here.

Like I said he is very good at running his business; very effective businessman and marketer.
I am not attacking him, although I do dislike his salesman rhetoric somewhat, and the cultism built around his persona.
He made Harbeth the recognised and sucessful brand that it is now.

But he has been manufacturing the same speakers ever since he bought the company (with minor tweeks), most of them BBC-based designs, with a few exceptions, for example:

 

[tuga]

The thing is, it does not matter as the speakers do what he says they do. They are very easy to the ear as they sound natural, even if the measurements are not that perfect. And his target public want that and no fuss. It's the same reason they make them very easy to drive by any amplifier, and especially by mainstream amps that are reasonable priced. They are like Volvo or Volkswagen cars, not the best or most refined arround, but reasonable priced within the market, reliable and everything works like it should and is very easy to use.

These speakers are not targetted at the typical ASR public, that mainly exist off technical minded people and try to find the ultimate. They are for a general public that wants a good sounding (to their ears) easy to listen speaker that is easy to drive and doesn't cost a fortune or draw to much attention to itself. It's only recently they came into fashion by a certain group of audiophiles. The type that are also bashed for longtime on the user's forum by Shaw for the snake oil stuff they defend. But still today, the majority of the people who buy this kind of speakers are music lovers who don't want to think about the technical side of it, they want a "set and forget" speaker that will last a lifetime ideally...

I've read all the BBC RD papers, I've owned large 3-way Spendors and my current speakers are Stirling Broadcasts. There's no need to "defend" Harbeth from me, I like their Monitor-series speakers.

 

[mSpot]

I'm not even sure Shaw's ever design any Hrabeth speakers. I knw that Derek Hughes colaborated with him after selling and leaving Spendor, and recently Shaw snatched Terry Miles who use to work as an engineer for that same company.

My impression of Shaw, based on his posts on Harbeth Users Group, is that he is highly involved in Harbeth speaker design and he does hands-on engineering work at least with measurements and crossover design. I don't know why you brought up Terry Miles in support of your statement, because his hiring was recent enough that he had no involvement with any of Harbeth's current product line. I agree with @DSJR that hiring Miles was at least partially to establish a line of succession for the company.

I seem to remember Shaw talking about the human voice being his main reference, and comparing the sound of his speakers with real voices.

Shaw talks about it on the Harbeth forum. His reasoning is that human hearing evolved over millions of years to become highly sensitive to distinguishing subtle nuances in the human voice (speech and spoken words). Therefore Shaw believes it is critical to reproduce human voice realistically, where human hearing is most sensitive. Not coincidentally, this also benefits accurately reproducing acoustic instruments. This focus resulted in Harbeth's reputation for having a "midrange magic". However, Harbeth also has a reputation for not doing rock music. The human voice range is critical for music but doesn't cover all of it, and Harbeth is not known for dynamics and transients, or frequency extension.

 

[MattHooper]

My impression of Shaw, based on his posts on Harbeth Users Group, is that he is highly involved in Harbeth speaker design and he does hands-on engineering work at least with measurements and crossover design. I don't know why you brought up Terry Miles in support of your statement, because his hiring was recent enough that he had no involvement with any of Harbeth's current product line. I agree with @DSJR that hiring Miles was at least partially to establish a line of succession for the company.


Shaw talks about it on the Harbeth forum. His reasoning is that human hearing evolved over millions of years to become highly sensitive to distinguishing subtle nuances in the human voice (speech and spoken words). Therefore Shaw believes it is critical to reproduce human voice realistically, where human hearing is most sensitive. Not coincidentally, this also benefits accurately reproducing acoustic instruments. This focus resulted in Harbeth's reputation for having a "midrange magic". However, Harbeth also has a reputation for not doing rock music. The human voice range is critical for music but doesn't cover all of it, and Harbeth is not known for dynamics and transients, or frequency extension.

Yes that's what I remember Shaw saying (in interviews, and I've read HUG sometimes).

As for Harbeth "not doing rock music," my take is that such assesments are mostly personal. It comes down to what an individual demands of a speaker, or of a certain type of music playback, as to whether that speaker "satisfies" with a particular type of music. Some people feel like they've never been satisfied with Rock or jazz until they ended up with gigantic horn speakers. Other people have been perfectly satisfied with much more meagre speakers. There are people who like Rock and Orchestral on Quad 57s, while others say the "can't do justice to that music."

The Harbeth speakers to me have always been a very good example of the subjective nature of this "X speaker is good for A but not B."

It's like they have a split reputation.

For SOME the Harbeth has a reputation for being pipe and slipper speakers - "good for jazz and acoustic music, but can't really rock or do electronica or demanding stuff like that." Yet on the other hand you have many who bought Harbeth speakers precisely because they found themselves enjoying a wider range of music than ever on those speakers (vs they found other speakers "good for x but not for y."). So many feel they are great "all arounders" which is why many fans say they are "end game" speakers for their systems.

When I had the Harbeth SuperHL5+, my impression was in the latter camp: I found them really well balanced, everything in a mix seemed to sort of "sit right," nothing sticking out obnoxiously, yet good power and density when required. "Evenness" and "sonic balance" were impressions that continually came to mind when listening. So I found everything from acoustic music to Rock, to funk, to electronica sounded excellent and very satisfying.

But then I wasn't looking for P.A.-level sonic assaults and "slam" for any of that music. Other people who want to head bang louder and harder may not be satisfied.

 

[tuga]

My impression of Shaw, based on his posts on Harbeth Users Group, is that he is highly involved in Harbeth speaker design and he does hands-on engineering work at least with measurements and crossover design. I don't know why you brought up Terry Miles in support of your statement, because his hiring was recent enough that he had no involvement with any of Harbeth's current product line. I agree with @DSJR that hiring Miles was at least partially to establish a line of succession for the company.

I know, I shouldn't try to reason with HUG members...

 

[DSJR]

I thought I'd posted this earlier, so it may be answered already...

Oh the larger ones 'do' rock music alright and even the P3ESR has a go if not too loud (Karma Coma by Massive Attack was surprisingly well managed and if slightly too loud, the bass unit tells you by 'bobbling' without cracking up as in nasty bottoming out). They just need space around them in a not muted acoustic, plenty of power without hard clipping or 'ringing' and off you go.. I have VERY fond memories of a pair of 40.1's put through their paces with 200W or more up their terminals. It didn't sound loud though, but you almost had to shout to make yourself heard. This was on good old fashioned 'rock' music (I think Led Zeppelin was very much a part of the music portfolio that afternoon along with other artistes..) The price of the 40.3 XD is now comfortably higher than some well established three way active monitors, one or two I can think of with grilles and wooden veneered cabs, so 'value for money' even in the home market, is now highly questionable depending on how you feel about your stereo gear addiction - or not.

Once shipped out (expensively) across the world, I do agree the price rises even higher once the distributor also takes their cut (Rega's another one with silly high export market prices where here it's best known here as a lower cost beer budget brand)

 

[ahofer]

I know, I shouldn't try to reason with HUG members...

That’s probably unnecessarily pejorative. But it’s true, despite talking about all his research on the forum, it‘s difficult to tell how much is fluff, since he doesn’t really post his work, he just refers to it.

He recently posted a review of streaming services, full of nonsense talk on sound quality (from Hi-FI Choice, too big to attach). I was surprised.

 

[DSJR]

I know, I shouldn't try to reason with HUG members...

It's not that, it's that Alan doesn't post here and just maybe, his side needs to be put across as well as 'we' can do it. The HUG posters here on ASR I don't feel are as 'tribal' as that comment above makes it out to be - and not all HUG posters own and use Harbeths either I've recently discovered - For financial, listening room and now severe ( ) hearing-issue reasons, I might not be an owner either in the near future as my needs seem to be for a wider, 'brighter' and more even hf dispersion - three hearing tests just lately have shown my hearing 'bottoms out severely' right where the so called 'BBC Dip' occurs in some speaker models.

The tonal balance of Harbeths from the introduction of the P3ESR, SHL5+, M30.1, 40.1 and the far more recent C7-XD (I don't know the C7 40th Anniversary model) and onwards, has seen an uptilt in measured and audible frequency balance to something far 'flatter' and my subjective audiophool take is that the slightly less intrusive passive crossovers (less eq and tweeter padding down?) seem to let the music 'breathe' much better, at least to me. I don't routinely play 'radio 3' material at all as it's suggested all Harbeth owners do and my first experience of the C7-XD was via a Yello CD album and at moderate levels, I had to keep leaving the turntable work I was doing to listen to tracks I hadn't heard so well in years! It now sounds like a slightly smaller 5+-XD which it never used to before (you lot would dislike the C7-ES3 predecessor I reckon as mid-bass dominates the sound on the few times I've heard it in the same room)

I 'speak' as I find. Doesn't stop me still loving ATC three way actives and hugely admiring the delightful Kii Threes with controller I heard a while back. My wife prefers a more 'veneered' kind of speaker as she has to look (glare) at them every day and that's fine. the smooth measuring (by a chap here) Beolab 6000's for a few hundred quid used may well be the (retirement) compromise and I'm trying to keep an open mind on this now my career is all but over....

 

[sktn77a]

I generally like Harbeth speakers (only ones I've heard are the P3 and M30 models). But the HUG is a joke. I frequented it for a while but in the last couple of years, it's changed into a "Fanboy" rag. I've posted a couple of pretty neutral and honest posts that have been deleted by Mr Shaw because they didn't match his biases, so I departed after that. As to the M30, its a speaker that brings out the black and white in people - some love it, some hate it. Personally, I've been an LS3/5a lover for over 40 years so my biases should be clear.

 

[thewas]

Stereophile has posted their review and measurements of their current Harbeth Super HL5plus XD loudspeakers:

Source and more: https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-super-hl5plus-xd-loudspeaker

 

[LTig]

Stereophile has posted their review and measurements of their current Harbeth Super HL5plus XD loudspeakers:

Source and more: https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-super-hl5plus-xd-loudspeaker

Yep, read it as well. No competition compared to a KH420. Just look at the bad directivity - a result of driving an 8" woofer far over its limit (3.5 kHz) regarding beaming.

 

[MattHooper]

I really liked the SuperHL5+ when I owned them. But for some reason I could never get a satisfying sense of soundstaging depth from them, even when they were well pulled out from the back wall and entering mid/nearfield listening. There was always a sense that the musicians were pulled closer, and only a few feet back from the speakers. Not sure why that was, since I've been able to get a stunning sense of depth from just about every other speaker I've ever used in my room.

 

[ahofer]

From memory, that does not look too different from the older SLH5+ measurements. I have the Anniversary Edition, which is supposedly closer to the XD, although the measurements don’t seem to be telling a very different story. Actually, the older ones look a touch flatter 3k-10k.

 

[thewas]

I really liked the SuperHL5+ when I owned them. But for some reason I could never get a satisfying sense of soundstaging depth from them, even when they were well pulled out from the back wall and entering mid/nearfield listening. There was always a sense that the musicians were pulled closer, and only a few feet back from the speakers. Not sure why that was, since I've been able to get a stunning sense of depth from just about every other speaker I've ever used in my room.

In my experience do often large baffles without rounded edges reduce the pinpoint imaging due to spatially distant secondary sounds sources, also the 2 tweeters could contribute to that.

Basic article | Baffle geometry

About baffle design, edge diffraction, secondary sound sources and their influence on the reproduction quality of loudspeakers.

heissmann-acoustics.de

 

[DSJR]

Main response done wrongly AGAIN at 'super tweeter' axis. Nobody asked the factory which tweeter to use it seems and enough fuss was made before about this I remember.

As for the directivity, I'd like to play devils advocate again. Just how important is it in the scheme of a nice sound at home? Take a tweeter down too low in crossover frequency and it can 'bark' (I've had this demonstrated to me), so careful choice of tweeter is vital. Add a waveguide and it can do funny things at the top end of its range it seems - mind you, most of us can't hear that high, so maybe a moot point. I'd conform though that my Spendor BC2's (in this instance similar to the famous and highly collectable BC1) with the slightly narrower baffle, do 'image' better and stronger, but the dispersion is an even bigger mess I think...

Nah, despite currently owning SHL5's with their sweet 'nice' tones and originally selling for half the current UK price in the late noughties, the current model is aimed squarely at the lucrative lower tier of 'audiophile' people now, too many (along with a newer wave of dealers) totally ignorant of how their valve/tube amp is going to mangle the frequency response as it tracks the massive impedance rise at 1.5kHz or so (I remember intensely disliking the 5+ at first, when used with an amp with 2.5 ohms or so output impedance, little more than half that of a Line magnetic or PrimaLuna confection). Some of the 'new owner' systems I read about on the HUG alarm me greatly,

-SO - nothing really here for ASR followers to be honest.

Anyone reading this and still remotely interested, should wait patiently till 2025, when the DSP active 'D' range is proposed to be launched. THEN you may have a KH420 alternative for comparison - but not this one (the 5_+ XD is five grand here and the 420 well over eight at current prices). I still like my older models, but am well aware of their excessively 'genteel' qualities which current issue models have tamed hugely. Remember that neumann and genelec aren't generally available from dealers with dem rooms, retail 'shop' overheads and the extra profit margin needed to service that need. I suspect KH420's sold through a retail dealer network would be over 50% more expensive and ciost more than ATC 50ASL's...

 

[thewas]

Add a waveguide and it can do funny things at the top end of its range it seems - mind you, most of us can't hear that high, so maybe a moot point.

Also like you write "it can" but it doesn't necessary have to, a mediocre implementation of a waveguide shouldn't be an argument against it.