Please forgive my grumpy mood in this, but this shit was sorted out ages ago on the HUG as well as my trying to mention it on a Facebook Harbeth page..
HELP Willem please
The CURRENT Harbeth designs, more than ever, have an impedance curve that's prettyy much solid-state amp agnostic but which might possibly be affected if you must use an old-fashioned valve/tube amp design (or a Croft solid state with 2 ohm output impedance). The 30.2's are still a bit warm-tubby toned but they're *substantially* flatter in measurements than the original M30's as tested here a while back, the originals designed to drop in replace the 'donor' LS5/9 speaker. Once the beeb didn't need any more, the 30.1 and 30.2 came along with a more neutral balance as I'm sure you appreciate. Add a bit of background, it also seems Harbeth may well have bought into the Klippel way of testing and there's a short thread on the HUG mentioning Klippel recommended amps to do the job reliably and not expensively, although some may be fan cooled and not entirely suitable (a Samson mono model was suggested which can be got on Amazon I believe), so I for one have high hopes for their future, the initial results being in the beneficially tweaked 'XD' models I reckon, but I have no proof and I digress.
As far as amps are concerned, PLEASE ignore many high end dealers who listen with their eyes and relate to the price tags - Pass Labs indeed!!!!! Sorry, but Pass is a luxury expensive brand pandering to a wealthy gear-enthusiast as much as anything else.. You can ideally drive your 30.2's with one of the Yamaha integrateds quite happily (the chassis has been discussed here and seems not so different from designs signed off decades ago - why change something that works well and reliably?). OK, not much cachet there in a $1k integrated, so we'll look further (in my case from a UK-centic piont of view).
The current amp brand of favour is the HEGEL brand. Clean looking, nice dacs inside I gather and amps which perform properly. I'd probably say the 120 for nearfield use and the larger one for most open plan style rooms (the power on peaks really is appreciated with piano, choral and much 'EM' music I play if allowed to give the system some welly - valve amps usually soft clip so appear louder than they really are as apparently 'we' can tolerate up to 10db of compression - the study was in an old BBC paper I remember). I had a wonderful time listening to the C7XD and M30.2XD using a Hegel 120 at sensible 'domestic' levels and have to say the former model enchanted me which its predecessors never did. the 30.2XD didn't initially sound much different from memories of yours in this dem situation but obviously, no A-B comparisons. The Hegel is discrete to look at and the two main controls 'feel nice' and are easy to use, for what it's worth. Uk supply and servicing ok now - it wasn't a year or so back I gather.
I'm a lifelong Quad fan, admitting they didn't always hit the target at first when under UK ownership. The current Artera version of the 606 power amp is still an excellent all-round amp which now looks a bit sharper I think and judging by previous versions, measures soundly too. I've heard it into Harbeths with the Artera Play CD-preamp and it was a lovely sound again. When this nonsense is over, I shall hopefully be able to do more hands on listening.
Perhaps not powerful enough for larger rooms, but the bigger Rega amps are good, the larger models feeling more solid over the baby Brio R. Measurements of ones I've seen are ok with no major flaws and well enough balanced I believe but not spectacular (Rega couldn't give a stuff about beating SINAID figures as much of this can't easily be heard).
More luxury and status enhancement needed? have a look at the 100W Luxmans! Solid luxury build and it's not all air inside either - heck, they've got METERS too
Built like amps used to be built before the cottage industries took over. The Krell Vanguard also sounded superb when I used one into SHL5+'s and it really woke them up and made them perform in terms of dynamic range, but I worry about servicing if ever needed, at least in the UK, but obviously in their home market, things will be different.
That enough for you? I haven't even started on the Hypex/Purifi based amps of which the March Audio ones look superbly built and finished - something a Harbeth owner would appreciate. Since I have multiple analogue sources, I tend to look for a decent analogue preamp and feel sad Schiit abandoned the solid state Freya S, at least for now. Many others have lavish casework which accounts for much of the prices asked (along with dealer margins of course)