Where did you go after Harbeth?

In my own experience, the ingredients to "the sound", meaning ultimate, lifelike reproduction consist of the following ingredients:

a 15 inch or larger woofer in a bass cabinet
a compression driver behind a decently large horn, crossed at around 500 Hz
a SET amplifier running the show

Sebastien1, if you happen to reside in the DC / Maryland area, I would be happy to have you listen to a proper horn setup with this configuration. It is "the sound".

I don't think an SET amp will properly drive your SHL5's. I found that my C7's liked power and sounded best with at least a solid 100 wpc amplifier. Though I never tried a SET or low power tube amp I have doubts about this pairing given my experience.

Hi Hornsystem,

I have some friends on a French forum specialized in tubes and high efficiency speakers (elektor.fr/forum) where many users also described this set-up to be the best.

On my side, I want to try SET and of this, I'm sure I'll need a high efficiency speaker.

Unfortunately, I live Montreal, Canada. So, I'm a little bit far away from D.C.

Regards,

Sébastien

For your information, Another Horn move up. I am moving from HL5S to Cessaro Chopin... Well, still waiting for it's arrivial and still keeping the HL5s.

I replaced my Harbeth SHL5s with Lahave Mela monitors, which are much more resolving but, like the Harbeths, have a natural non-fatiguing sound, but with a much more live, you-are-there quality, and just a lot more joy.
Much better than Joseph Pulsars (that I almost bought).