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Harbeth 40.2 OR Spendor Classic 100 OR ??

I'm midway through the quest for the next set of speakers, and the purpose of this thread is just to check if there are any makes/models out there that I should be taking into consideration, but are not currently on my radar.

My current two finalists are as above, Harbeth 40.2 and Spendor Classic 100.

Both of these have displaced my previous "fav", the Vienna Acoustics Liszt.

In various auditionings, I've also been impressed by Audio Note AN-E and Shahinian Oberlisk. I know both of these models are "divergent", but I mention them not because they're also real contenders, but because I was really impressed by the timbral presentation of the AN--as natural as I've heard, and the spatial presentation of the Shahinian--as, well, spacious as I've heard..  At the same time, they both have drawbacks that rule them out for me.

I hope this list gives some idea of where my acoustic tastes align.  Is there anything else out there I should listen to?  I have heard Spendor D7 and ProAc D30, and extrapolating from them, ruled out their corresponding larger models.  I've also heard Devore O/93, and again preferred Harbeth, Spendor, as well as AN (his inspiration).

I'm not really interested in suggestions from the "usual suspects" pool--you know, Vandersteen, Magico, Focal, Revel, B&W, PSB, Monitor Audio, Dynaudio, etc.

BTW, to be driven by Belles Aria monoblocks in what I would describe as a medium-sized room wherein placement would allow for a good 3' away from front and both side walls.

128x128twoleftears

Showing 3 responses by larryi

larryi
3,718 posts
 
It would be helpful to know what ruled out some of the contenders.  I like a lot of the speakers you mentioned.  I notice that they mostly fall in the warmer side of the the coloration spectrum, and tend to deliver rich, well saturated, timbre rather than sounding lean and detailed.  This is my kind of sound too.  But, the tricky aspect of this sound is avoiding a sluggish sound that lacks appropriate micro dynamics.  Tell us what you want more of that some of the contenders did not deliver, or what they did that was somewhat off-putting.

Both the Harbeth and the Spendor have quite similar sound.  They can both over power small and medium sized rooms with their bass and sound a bit boomy.  They both need a bit of power and may not be suitable with very low-powered tube amps.  I know that the Harbeth is quite sensitive about the kind of amp it is used with and can sound lifeless with the wrong amp (I have very little recent experience with the SP100).
larryi
3,718 posts
 
My speakers have a Jensen-Onken cabinet for the twin 12" woofers, with the midrange compression driver/horn sitting on a cradle above this box (bullet tweeter on a cradle below the horn).  It was easy to just replace the compression driver and horn.  I did this by getting a matched pair of Western Electric 713b drivers and a pair of 12025 Western Electric horns.  These days, it is hard to get matched 713b's, and with the horns, the price now exceeds $30k.  To me, the 713b is one of the best sounding midrange drivers around, although it does have its own shortcoming (somewhat restricted in frequency range compared to some other vintage drivers, such as the 555, a low impedance that makes it harder to match with easier load tweeters and woofers).
larryi
3,718 posts
 
I don't know if I would rule out the bigger ProAc speakers based on hearing their smaller models.  Certainly someone who likes Harbeth, Audio Note and Spendor would at least be a candidate for ProAc speakers. 

I don't know how easy it would be to find, but the JM Reynaud line would also be worth looking into.  It has been a while since I heard them, but, I liked their warm, harmonically dense sound.

Someone mentioned the Triangle speakers, which is an interesting recommendation.  They tend to be, perhaps, a little "brighter" sounding than your listed candidates, but, not in a bad way--they are vibrant sounding without being harsh or shrill; I like them.

I think that in this price range, it would be worth while making a trip to New Jersey to hear the Charney Audio speakers.  They make absolutely amazing sounding speakers--vibrant, clear, coherent and harmonically rich.  They come with different driver options (I like the AER driver the most) with the particular model I am interested in ranging from about $12k to $17k (depending on driver and finish).  They are also very high in efficiency (above 100 db/w) and present an easy load so they can be driven by low-powered amps (the best kind, to me).  I own a pair of speakers with midrange drivers that are twice as expensive as these whole speakers, and I am thinking about replacing them with the Charneys.
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