Harbeth vs JM Reynaud

There's no substitute for doing an in home demo. You tried the Harbeths in your system, and liked them enough to buy them. If you can't do the same with the JM Reynaud, I wouldn't even consider it. I don't care how good the reviews are, there's just too much that can go wrong.

What part of the country do you live in? I know a really good Harbeth dealer. His whole store is built around the "British" sound. That's his specialty. Harbeth, Spendor, Rega, Naim, Audio Note, Nottingham, and some others.

You can't fix a high frequency timber problem with room acoustics. I've tried to do this many times. The directionality of the high frequencies just doesn't allow for it. There's a direct line of sight between the ear and the tweeter, and the only way to make any progress, is to change the sound coming out of the drivers themselves.

"Otherwise, get a new pair of speakers and start all over - which in turn may not necessarily guarantee 100% satisfaction. In the end, it's all about managing expectations."

True, but the only way to manage expectations, is to demo equipment before you buy it. Otherwise, its just guessing and hoping for the best.

"Room acoustics will address most frequencies in the spectrum from high to low."

I'm talking about what comes out of a loudspeaker, not how loud it is. Altering a frequency that may be too loud is not the same as changing timber. You can't get what's not there to begin with. It has nothing to do with room acoustics.

"10-12-15: Wim1983
Ryder, Zd542: I agree with Zd542 about sound coming out from driver, it just not so easy to tame. Hmm, I dun get it, the Denton and Jade 3 is designed by same person. But the Denton sound very forgiving, although cannot say easy to drive, but works with clean power, while the Jade 3 goes to other end, sound very unforgiving and makes matching harder a lot, does not make sense. While I've heard Harbeth is very forgiving in gear matching, I believe clean power is still needed for better distortions handling. How about the JM Reynaud, are they designed to sound forgiving in a broad range of music?"

I may have answered at least part of this in the other thread you were posting in, but maybe I can give some more info here. When you talk about how a speaker is meant to sound, and are surprised to find out that 2 speakers designed by the same person can sound very different, its very hard to put this into context without actually listening. High end speakers and components are not meant to be bought without some type of demo. There can be many legitimate reasons why a designer may make different sounding speakers. To get the system that's right for you, you have to put the time and effort into it. Its not always easy, but that's just the way it is.

Let me give you an example from a speaker designers perspective. Looking at the situation from a different perspective may be helpful. My favorite speaker, and a company I know very well is Vandersteen. Before I start, I'm not trying to sell you on this brand, I'm just using them as an example because I've been dealing with them for a long time and know a lot about them.

Vandersteen understands what it is that you are going through as a person trying to trying to buy the right speaker. Like many other good brands, they know it can be very difficult, and they take steps to make the process as easy as they can for potential buyers. If you think about it, its the same type of problem, just in reverse. The consumer needs to buy the right speaker to be happy, and the speaker manufacturer needs to sell speakers to people who will be happy with them. The way they do this is to let only the best qualified retailers sell their speakers. Vandersteen is extremely picky about who they let sell their products. If they can't find a dealer that meets their high standards in any particular area, they choose not to sell their product there. They won't compromise. If you go to their web site and look at their dealer list here in the US, you'll see that they don't have at least 1 dealer in many of our 50 states. Its not even close. They need dealers that know how to set the speakers up, match them with the best components, actually carry the best components in their store and have an extremely good reputation in the audiophile community. If a store doesn't have all that, he won't even consider letting them become a dealer. What I'm getting at with all this, is to show how important, and difficult it can be, to make the right choices. And the better manufacturers know this, and do as much as they can to make sure their products get sold to the people that should by buying them.

I hope this info helps. Its unfortunate, but the magazines never talk about stuff like this. As a result, so many new people don't get the results they expect, and end up walking away from audio in frustration.

"10-10-15: Wim1983
@Ryder: if a speaker sound too analytical and ruthlessly revealing, any solution to tame those extra details using preamp? Or it would be difficult to find such gear and do the matching?"

If you want to build a system that you're happy with over the long term, that's not a good way to do it. Each component should be able to stand on its own without any help. The last thing you need is to buy a speaker and immediately after, start buying components in an attempt to fix problems. And even is you somehow manage to get it right, it makes upgrades a nightmare.

"Having said that, you may consider different amps to tone down the brightness of your Wharfedale Jade 3. I have read the Stereophile review of the Wharfedale Jade 3 and noticed that they used tube amplification to drive the speakers. Audio Research tube power amp and Audio Valve Eclipse tube preamp. The smoothness and warmth from tube amplification may have formed a great combination with the analytical and detailed Jade 3s."

Buying tubes doesn’t guarantee anything. You can still have the same exact problem with tubes in the chain. If you're looking for a "warm and smooth" sound, you can just as easily get it with solid state.

Looking at the Jade 3 bright/harsh issue, most of the suggested fixes, are in some way looking to cover the problem up, not fix it. Rolling off a speaker with other components does nothing to resolve the underlying issue. Most of the time, problems with high frequencies, comes down to a matter of timber. For example, cymbals don't sound like cymbals, they sound like someone dropped a piece of metal on a concrete floor. The proper fix would be to make the cymbal sound like what its supposed to. Do that, and you'll have a system that plays fully extended highs, without sounding bright/harsh.