Are Harbeth S HL5's As Good As Reviewers Claim?

I recently purchased a pair of HL-5's. They substituted a pair of ESL-57 (Piquet modified). I am not sure I have found the best position in the room yet, but I am quite happy so far. The only area where they do not excel, in my room at least, is imaging. Compared to the Quad's they seem to process less well spatial information. In contrast to what some people said, I do not find them too warm. I think they are extremely neutral. And yes, I completely agree that they are not fatiguing at all.

I completely second the idea that these speakers invite you to listen to a lot of music. Some hard-core audiophiles seem to be looking for the ultimate level of detail, for example whether a guitar player has large or small fingers, and perhaps some pleasure can be derived from that. But this approach forgets that when you sit in a real auditorium you do not reach those levels of details. Some speakers seem to me the equivalent of microscopes. Can you watch reality with a microscope all the time? I guess you get tired pretty quickly. In the case of audio, if you have a cd or a record that is not very accurate, if you hear it with an audio microscope all of these imperfections get amplified...and make the experience very fatiguing. I think Harbeth are natural. They reproduce music in a way that is similar to what you experience in an auditorium. As I said in my prior post, I think they could be a tad better in processing spatial information...but overall great speaker.

Chashas1, I totally agree that we should not pay too much attention to what others or reviewers say.

On the other hand, as I read this thread, I realize that lots of people seem to have had similar experiences with Harbeths -- they talk about musicality and there is this notion of listening to more music.

That makes me think (also because this is precisely what I experienced with my system) there there is some truth in this.