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Midrange Better Than Harbeth or Spendor?

I recently auditioned a pair of Harbeth SHL5's and Sendor S8's and was really impressed with the mids on both of these speakers. I was wondering if folks out there who have first hand experience could recommend other speakers that equal or surpass these two in the midrange. Thank you.
bcollins

Showing 5 responses by cdc

cdc
1,663 posts
 
Tannoy Westminster
cdc
1,663 posts
 
"A lot of dynamic speakers fall short in this area (to my ears) with buzzy, digital-sounding vocals even though they sound fine otherwise."
Harbeth sounds like that. One of the worst speakers I ever heard. Jumbled, incoherent, just sounds coming out of a box. My girlfriend and I looked at each other after 5 minutes and said "we just drove almost 3 hours to hear this?" But if you like Sonus Faber grand Pianos Harbeth may be for you.
cdc
1,663 posts
 
In their literature, Harbeth describes their speakers as "Fast, clear, precise, .... big rich sound with incredible ease and detail...dramatic improvement in clarity of sound".

I agree completely however I do not think they are telling the whole truth. Note the emphasis on "sound". Put the Harbeths next to Intuitive Design Summits or a single driver speaker and the problem is obvious.
Note these are only my humble opinions as to my preferences.
cdc
1,663 posts
 
You could try www.carolinaaudio.com for the Jordan drivers although I have not heard them.
I don't think a single driver can usually match a multi-way in this respect since multi way puts the driver only in its most efficient frequency of operation. You can't have it all. At least from the very few single driver speakers that I have heard.
The best option I know of is running a 4" full-range and adding a supertweeter for over 10kHz to add some sparkle.
cdc
1,663 posts
 
Also Quads and Sound labs.

"Single driver.......Which would you recommend that can match or surpass the clean and refined sound of the Harbeths or Spendors?"
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