Acoustic Zen Adagio vs. Harbeth S-HL5

Lplayer,

I assume the question is for me,but I do not understand it.

kindly elaborate andI would be happy to answer..;)

they are different speakers;

The main strenght of Harbeth is its musicality;and you really do not have to worry much about speaker cables,resonance control and tweaking.....and it is very easy to match as far as amplifiers are concerned.

The Adagio on the other hand is not a finish product.You need to tweak it well to get it singing in its full glory;and the better your electronics the better it will sound.

So if you are looking for something to give you a musical bliss without worrying much about tweaking,go with Harbeth....I have never met anyone who regret buying a Harbeth[...and I have met plenty]The same can't be say about the Adagio especially on the background of the glowing reviews it received

BTW ,I own a tweaked up Adagio in my 3rd system

Lplayer,

I have a Kharma 3.2 in my referance system,and if you have listened to a Kharma before,you will realize that all Kharma has certain characteristic;Transparency like crystals ,details like a microscope and a soundstage that is wide and high that goes all the way to heavens.....

with this in mind ,I found the stock Adagio to be very far behind fr the Kharma and it boils down to its Archilles heel;poor resonance control.In short,If you need to get the Adagio singing control its resonance .These were the things I Did:

1.Changing the stock spikes to the Finite Elemente Cerabase- it make a Huge Difference!!!the biggest difference no doubt.. Every adagio owner should do this IMO.

2.Putting the speakers on Finite Elemente Pagode MR platforms.

3.Using huge amount of Acoustic Revive and Audio Replas Crystals at where the screws are{the screws are quite poor quality SS not Brass and they have a lot of ringing IMO] .....and at different places on the cabinets.This add to the transparency...

I also found that the speaker connectors are of very poor quality and changed that to the WBT top of the line connectors...

there are a few other things that I did that I feel add on to the performance......Feel free to e-mail me if you need more info

Like I said before,the Adagio is not a finished product;But tweak them well ,and you will be rewarded accordingly.

If you think the cerabase is too expansive ,a cheaper alternative is to put them on the TAOC board.These are quite cheap in asia,thogh I do not know how much they cost in the US.With the TAOC board,the details just come through,bass becomes much more pronounced but the high can be somewhat thin..

The other Cera range footer from Finite Elemente are quite good too though not in the same league as the Cerabase.I have the speakers In my Library system;a simple system that consists of dcs puccini-Neodio 150 intergrated -and Argento cablings.The floorings are Solid Burmese Teakwood with a Large persian silk carpets just in fropnt of the speakers