Hi I am the New Zealand Harbeth distributor and I have to agree with Dkasab, the Monitor 40.1 is a incredible speaker and when set up properly sounds incredible.
I play all types of music but not a big fan of 60/70s/80s Rock recordings as most has no bass for my tastes and sounds loud thin and just badly mastered.
I play a lot of Reggae / Roots & Dub music, the Harbeth Monitor 40.1 really portray a live like playback with natural bass tone, I also play a lot of male & female vocals and I find the Monitor 40.1 also excel here as well.
Garebear I think you will find with time and room placement experimentation you will appreciate what the Monitor 40.1 speakers can do.
There is a very good report on the Harbeth UK Forum at the moment of a Harbeth 40.1 speaker owner and amplifiers he has used with his Harbeths.
"As a user of the M40.1 for more than one year now, i can confirm that timbre and vocals are fabulous ... but that's not all: somehow they sound very clear , crisp, effortless, coherent while being very communicative at the same time. Very good timing and flow. Bass is deep, fast, tight, yet not overdamped. Cannot understand Jeff day's comments.. i guess it's all down to correct placement, which should not be taken lightly or for granted by even a professional reviewer. Each time i thought there could be a slight margin for improvement, it was down to the recording, or some minor tweaking (toe in, minute placement, rake ...). Never made complex musical lines and musicians's intentions as much sense as through these speakers .... in think i now "get" Coltrane at last.
I tried many electronics ( Naim, LFD, Rega osiris and elicit, YBA, Prima Luna, Audiomat, Manley, Unison, Accuphase ...) with them, and maybe i was lucky because the sound was always at least very good. However, best and incredible results were with LFD (any one of their different integrateds was great) and with Audiomat Opera, wich was very slightly better still, but very similar sound. For convenience (no power valves) i bought the LFD NCSE and use it with EAR acute with nos valves.
The system defenitely betters my full YBA1 + Spendor S-100, and also the YBA1 + Sonus Faber Amati i had tried.... thought also it bettered, but still in a very similar style, a valve mac intosh + Quad 2905 system i tried in the same room ...."
Cheers Jason.
I play all types of music but not a big fan of 60/70s/80s Rock recordings as most has no bass for my tastes and sounds loud thin and just badly mastered.
I play a lot of Reggae / Roots & Dub music, the Harbeth Monitor 40.1 really portray a live like playback with natural bass tone, I also play a lot of male & female vocals and I find the Monitor 40.1 also excel here as well.
Garebear I think you will find with time and room placement experimentation you will appreciate what the Monitor 40.1 speakers can do.
There is a very good report on the Harbeth UK Forum at the moment of a Harbeth 40.1 speaker owner and amplifiers he has used with his Harbeths.
"As a user of the M40.1 for more than one year now, i can confirm that timbre and vocals are fabulous ... but that's not all: somehow they sound very clear , crisp, effortless, coherent while being very communicative at the same time. Very good timing and flow. Bass is deep, fast, tight, yet not overdamped. Cannot understand Jeff day's comments.. i guess it's all down to correct placement, which should not be taken lightly or for granted by even a professional reviewer. Each time i thought there could be a slight margin for improvement, it was down to the recording, or some minor tweaking (toe in, minute placement, rake ...). Never made complex musical lines and musicians's intentions as much sense as through these speakers .... in think i now "get" Coltrane at last.
I tried many electronics ( Naim, LFD, Rega osiris and elicit, YBA, Prima Luna, Audiomat, Manley, Unison, Accuphase ...) with them, and maybe i was lucky because the sound was always at least very good. However, best and incredible results were with LFD (any one of their different integrateds was great) and with Audiomat Opera, wich was very slightly better still, but very similar sound. For convenience (no power valves) i bought the LFD NCSE and use it with EAR acute with nos valves.
The system defenitely betters my full YBA1 + Spendor S-100, and also the YBA1 + Sonus Faber Amati i had tried.... thought also it bettered, but still in a very similar style, a valve mac intosh + Quad 2905 system i tried in the same room ...."
Cheers Jason.