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Harbeth Super HL5+
- Thread starter Roy_L
- Start date
This is precisely the kind of subjective noise that Alan does not want, and quite rightly in my view. He has argued time and again that an amplifier should have a low output impedance and that tubes are not a good idea, therefore. He has also quite rightly argued that power matters, and the more the better. He does not want people to be distracted from these two simple bits of scientific truth. Alan tries to persuade people to use the best electronics to do justice to his design and his design objective of neutrality, and he repeatedly argues that you do not have to spend an arm and a leg to achieve that.
DSJR
Major Contributor
I used to like Croft amps with SHL5's and heard this combination regularly. Harbeth launched the 'Plus' version and I hated the thin toned almost screeching noises this new model was giving out and I couldn't believe it. I was so upset I thought my ears had finally failed me. I then heard the 5+ on a Krell Vanguard integrated, a Quad Artera Play with Stereo amp, then a Sonneteer (shame this company are too small to be seriously noticed), old 1970's Crown amps like mine, then the larger Rega amps and in very recent times, I've had fun with a couple of Hegel models with these speakers, most recently with the 5+ XD speakers. No sonic issues there and very little 'sound change' either, although I 'imagine' the Hegel's are very slightly 'cleaner' than the much cheaper Rega models
I then did some digging and discovered that both the Croft Integrated (it hard clips so not really suitable for harbeth sensitivity speakers) and the Series 7 power amp, have a minimum of two ohms output impedance (more like 2.5 I gather from Stereophile and HFN measurements) and this equalises the speakers hugely (Harbeths have a roller-coaster impedance curve which most decent amps ignore).
I have to say it judging by pictures on Youtube and even Harbeth's own site. Many new owners remove the grilles and face the speakers straight ahead sited too close to the back wall in a barely furnished minimalist room with no carpets or curtains to quieten the room down, ignorant of the acoustic job the grille does and also the less modern dispersion characteristic which really required them to be angled towards the listener and the bass alteration by too close to back wall siting. They sit the substantial stands on floor decouplers and buy the fanciest 'fooiest' cables to connect them to often totally inappropriate amplification and to finish the bodge job off, use vinyl as a prime source with 'digital' as a standby! 'High Fidelity' be damned!!!
Apologies. I'm a boring old fart in this now, but seeing so many badly set up systems bought solely for personal kudos and status enhancement pains me greatly. Harbeth, seemingly out of necessity, are now priced at the lower end of this vibe now and attracting more and more of these people where price tag and a loose 'BBC Legacy' means far more than sound quality or music reproduction in general.
I then did some digging and discovered that both the Croft Integrated (it hard clips so not really suitable for harbeth sensitivity speakers) and the Series 7 power amp, have a minimum of two ohms output impedance (more like 2.5 I gather from Stereophile and HFN measurements) and this equalises the speakers hugely (Harbeths have a roller-coaster impedance curve which most decent amps ignore).
I have to say it judging by pictures on Youtube and even Harbeth's own site. Many new owners remove the grilles and face the speakers straight ahead sited too close to the back wall in a barely furnished minimalist room with no carpets or curtains to quieten the room down, ignorant of the acoustic job the grille does and also the less modern dispersion characteristic which really required them to be angled towards the listener and the bass alteration by too close to back wall siting. They sit the substantial stands on floor decouplers and buy the fanciest 'fooiest' cables to connect them to often totally inappropriate amplification and to finish the bodge job off, use vinyl as a prime source with 'digital' as a standby! 'High Fidelity' be damned!!!
Apologies. I'm a boring old fart in this now, but seeing so many badly set up systems bought solely for personal kudos and status enhancement pains me greatly. Harbeth, seemingly out of necessity, are now priced at the lower end of this vibe now and attracting more and more of these people where price tag and a loose 'BBC Legacy' means far more than sound quality or music reproduction in general.
And again this is the problem.
Dont call it subjective noise.
The neutral way as you described is totally fine…
BUT don’t see others a silly.
To persuade others is not always correct.
Nice comment and in some points I agree.
But sorry, your first sentences doesnt make sense (also technical, scientific) and is misleading.
Only after changing from SHL5 to SHL5+ the Croft starts to clipping….
Oh come on….
as I said that is misleading!
or maybe I misunderstood.
As it was once said so eloquently: you can have your own opinions but you cannot have your own facts.
I think many people here would completely agree that if you have you r own preference then that's fine. We all like what we like and there is nothing wrong with liking coloured sound. However that doesn't invalidate the advice from Harbeth which is eminently sensible.
…who is so bold to believe that he knows all the facts….
I also despair when I see $100,000 or more of electronics/speakers flat against a wall in a room with a stone floor. I had 15 tonnes of screed delivered this morning as the base for 100 sqm of tiled floor on the ground floor of my house. If I put a stereo system in that space nothing could save it. Fortunately there is a separate room constructed completely differently with appropriate treatment to the walls, ceiling and floors and the sound is just right.
D
Deleted member 21219
Guest
I had used the term, "incompetent". I believe that term is euphemistic, and that I was being overly generous. There are terms that I regard as more accurate, but they are extremely pejorative and I won't use them here.
Now .... to begin: there is NOTHING wrong with liking a "particular sound". Many people do. Even I do. But think about the potential problems in that.
If you design an amp for neutrality, you can depend on it to be neutral. If you want a different frequency response, you can use an equalizer to get it. The amp is still neutral. If you want a particular sound to the bass in the speaker, you can change the speaker alignment. The amp is still neutral. If you want distortion, there are emulators that you can use that will add certain kinds of distortion ......... or so I have heard. I do not subscribe to the use of such things. And in each case, you know exactly what it is you are doing. You know what you are adding, and you know what you are subtracting.
Now you have your "particular sound"|, and the amp is still neutral.
But let's say you want to get your "particular sound" by using a different amp. Maybe you want an amp that gives you a prominent midrange. There are designs that will do that, although there is no standard for how much midrange prominence it will give you. If you had used a neutral amp and an equalizer, you would know precisely.
Maybe you want an amp that gives you a rolled-off treble. There are designs that will do that, too. You can get this effect with an equalizer, too. And you will know the degree precisely.
Maybe you want a subjective "woodiness" in the bass. Emulators can give you that, too.
But what if you grow weary of the effect? With emulators and equalizers, you can reverse the effect instantly. Or you can change the degree of the settings instantly. With an amp made to produce a "particular sound", you cannot. You're stuck with the effect that the amp imposes on you. If you get tired of it, the only choice you have is to purchase some new component to change the "particular sound".
Now you know why "audiophiles" are constantly chasing new components. A neutral amplifier can be tested and measured, and the degree of neutrality can be verified. The effect is also able to be predicted; no effect. No "particular sound". But the degree of "particular sound" in amplifiers designed to sound some other way than neutral CANNOT be predicted. It is not standardized. The amp can be tested, and it can be measured, but because different speaker systems have wildly varying electrical and mechanical characteristics, the effect CANNOT be predicted.
I can't stress that strongly enough.
There are various people who try to tell you that despite all this, their products produce a certain characteristic that is 1) desirable, and 2) cannot be measured with the instruments we have today. They even tell you that they (or you) can pick out this euphonic characteristic every time.
Here's the way I look at that. Please forgive me for being blunt. If you have two people standing in front of you, and one is clean while the other is covered with mud, can you pick out the one that's dirty? Can you do it every time? I think you could. I am 70 years old, but I think that I could, too.
So the ability to discern these non-standard characteristics is not magic. Far from it.
So that leaves us with one choice. If you like this "particular sound", do you wish to get it by using a neutral amplifier and then modify the signal with some sort of add-on device or program, .... or ..... do you want to get this "particular sound" by purchasing inherently non-neutral devices that may perform in unpredictable ways .... either this year or next year? Devices that lead you on a wild-goose-chase of upgrade-itis that never ends? Devices for which there are no standards to predict the effects it will have in your system?
If you wish to travel that road, go ahead. I wish you good luck. Jim Taylor
Alan Shaw has indicated that he has Quad amplifiers that he uses for design purposes (they are old pro units). He was also loaned a Hegel 360 for demo purposes and liked it enough to buy two of them. I don't think he ever recommended anyone but them in preference to any other brand.
Harbeth will sound fine within a certain range with a 30w amplifier, they will sound better with a good 70w amplifier (like Croft) and even better with 150w. That's about as much power as you need, after which any more performance may be marginal.
I had used the term, "incompetent". I believe that term is euphemistic, and that I was being overly generous. There are terms that I regard as more accurate, but they are extremely pejorative and I won't use them here.
Now .... to begin: there is NOTHING wrong with liking a "particular sound". Many people do. Even I do. But think about the potential problems in that.
If you design an amp for neutrality, you can depend on it to be neutral. If you want a different frequency response, you can use an equalizer to get it. The amp is still neutral. If you want a particular sound to the bass in the speaker, you can change the speaker alignment. The amp is still neutral. If you want distortion, there are emulators that you can use that will add certain kinds of distortion ......... or so I have heard. I do not subscribe to the use of such things. And in each case, you know exactly what it is you are doing. You know what you are adding, and you know what you are subtracting.
Now you have your "particular sound"|, and the amp is still neutral.
But let's say you want to get your "particular sound" by using a different amp. Maybe you want an amp that gives you a prominent midrange. There are designs that will do that, although there is no standard for how much midrange prominence it will give you. If you had used a neutral amp and an equalizer, you would know precisely.
Maybe you want an amp that gives you a rolled-off treble. There are designs that will do that, too. You can get this effect with an equalizer, too. And you will know the degree precisely.
Maybe you want a subjective "woodiness" in the bass. Emulators can give you that, too.
But what if you grow weary of the effect? With emulators and equalizers, you can reverse the effect instantly. Or you can change the degree of the settings instantly. With an amp made to produce a "particular sound", you cannot. You're stuck with the effect that the amp imposes on you. If you get tired of it, the only choice you have is to purchase some new component to change the "particular sound".
Now you know why "audiophiles" are constantly chasing new components. A neutral amplifier can be tested and measured, and the degree of neutrality can be verified. The effect is also able to be predicted; no effect. No "particular sound". But the degree of "particular sound" in amplifiers designed to sound some other way than neutral CANNOT be predicted. It is not standardized. The amp can be tested, and it can be measured, but because different speaker systems have wildly varying electrical and mechanical characteristics, the effect CANNOT be predicted.
I can't stress that strongly enough.
There are various people who try to tell you that despite all this, their products produce a certain characteristic that is 1) desirable, and 2) cannot be measured with the instruments we have today. They even tell you that they (or you) can pick out this euphonic characteristic every time.
Here's the way I look at that. Please forgive me for being blunt. If you have two people standing in front of you, and one is clean while the other is covered with mud, can you pick out the one that's dirty? Can you do it every time? I think you could. I am 70 years old, but I think that I could, too.
So the ability to discern these non-standard characteristics is not magic. Far from it.
So that leaves us with one choice. If you like this "particular sound", do you wish to get it by using a neutral amplifier and then modify the signal with some sort of add-on device or program, .... or ..... do you want to get this "particular sound" by purchasing inherently non-neutral devices that may perform in unpredictable ways .... either this year or next year? Devices that lead you on a wild-goose-chase of upgrade-itis that never ends? Devices for which there are no standards to predict the effects it will have in your system?
If you wish to travel that road, go ahead. I wish you good luck. Jim Taylor
Interesting thoughts and I agree with you.
What I totally disagree are comments of others who say that the one and only true way is to have everything „neutral“.
KR, Thomas
Sry, but Alan recommended Quad. Have a look at HUG or talk to Alan.
Just to be correct, Croft Series 7 do have 45Wrms @8Ohm.
At a lower listening volume more Watts do not sound better.
Whats your explanation?
These general comments are misleading.
The amount of Watts depends on listening volume, sensitivity of the speaker, DR,….
Alan Shaw recommends Quad (and others) because they are reliably neutral, are reasonably priced (or at least used to be), can be repaired easily, and because Quad has a great repair facility in the UK. But not because they have a desirable sonic flavour or a sprinkle of magic dust. And indeed, I have three of them (a 303, a 405-2 and a 606-2), all quite old, but completely refurbished and the 405-2 and 606-2 still serving daily in quite ambitious modern systems.
Interesting answer because my old C7 had a more critical bass, more boom. The SHL5+ have a much tighter bass….
No I did not measure.
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