Joseph Audio Perspective2 vs Harbeth SHL5+

The JAs allow quite a wide spread, yet you still get good imaging.

One time I put them almost entirely to the sides of my room and the soundstage was ridiculously massive, and still good imaging.  Putting both speakers too close to the side walls did introduce a bit of thickness in the bass so I found a nice position with a wide stage and evenly balanced sound. 

ryder,

I actually liked the bass of the Harbeth SHL5+

It's true it doesn't "slam" like you might get from some other speakers, and if someone demands more impact and engagement in the bass it may not be for them.

But for me it's strength was how evenly balanced the bass was with the rest of the spectrum.  At least in my room (and elsewhere I heard them), "evenly balanced" was what came to mind all the time, and it was satisfying in that way.

arafiq

How happy where you with the soundstage DEPTH on the Harbeth?

As I've said before, that was probably the biggest deficit when I had them.  For some reason their soundstage was shallower than pretty much any speaker I've owned, things "pulled in to the room" rather than "back wall melting away depth" I get with other speakers.

whipsaw, I received your bat signal!

@arafiq 

I had the Harbeth SuperHL5plus for a while.  I sold them and eventually bought

Joseph Audio Perspectives (original).  I plan to upgrade them to graphene at some point.

I've been asked before to compare Harbeth to Joseph speakers so I'll grab a long reply I wrote to someone else on the subject.  He was asking about comparison between the Harbeth 30s and the Joseph Pulsars, but everything I wrote pertains to the SuperHL5+ and the Joseph speakers.

Keep in mind I ended up with the Joseph speakers and, all things considered, as much as I love Harbeth too, I wouldn't trade them for the Harbeth.   The Joseph speakers will absolutely give you a wider, deeper soundstage and over all more impressive "disappearing" act, vs the Harbeth.

Here's what I wrote:

---------------------------

....as someone who loves both the JA and the Harbeth speakers, I think I can give some idea of the differences. I listened to the Pulsars before I bought my Perspectives, and they sound close to identical, but the Perspectives add deeper bass.

I've listened to the whole Harbeth line, and owned the Harbeth SuperHL5plus speakers for a while.

I'm attracted to both those brands because I'm very in to tonal beauty/realism, and both do that in a close to peerless fashion...and yet sound very different.

I would say the Harbeth sound is an updated BBC monitor sound, with that richness and body in the mids, that organic filled out sense of voices that make singers sound human and present physically, not merely vivid but see-through holograms. They are masters with timbre -wood sounding "woody," brass "brassy," rather than the blanched, electronic tone of many more modern speakers. And yet being an updated BBC sound, they don't sound obviously boxy, and they do excellent detail and clarity. I find them super balanced sounding.

Though one thing I found with the Harbeth 30's is they did sound a wee bit darker than life. That's one reason I chose the SuperHL5plus, which seemed to have a more extended, airy top end. But I love the sound of the 30's as well.

If I had to generalize about the Modern Speaker Sound, it's that super low cabinet coloration, super "fast" detail and transparency of often metal drivers - exceedingly clear and clean, though sometimes at the expense of body, texture and organically real timbre.

As for the Joseph speakers, they are also masters of tone. But whereas the Harbeths have a stronger foot in the older comfy BBC sound, the Josephs have a stronger foot in the modern speaker sound. They are super clean, pure, transparent, detailed, boxless sounding, image like mad, etc. However they manage to do this without sounding sterile. Just the opposite: rather than their purity blanching the music of tonal color, you get tonal and timbral colours blooming through with greater purity. Like looking at coloured pebbles through a stream which has been suddenly cleaned of all it's silt - the vividness of the colours seem revealed. So wood sounds very distinct, as does brass, drum cymbals, all the exact timbres of a drum set, the sparkle and growl of a piano. That's one thing that astonished me when I auditioned the Joseph speakers, the utter purity and lack of grain, and even though the highs were very extended, this lack of grain lent an unmechanical ease to the presentation which many remark upon. And even though they use a soft dome tweeter, cymbals and steel instruments sound particularly "metallic" yet relaxed.

The other "trick" up the Joseph sleeve is why, despite their transparency and clean sound, they don't sound sterile: They have a very juicy lower midrange to bass. Jeff Joseph says on his website: "Live, unamplified music has unmistakable presence and clarity. Yet, at the same time it also sounds relaxed and warm." And that is precisely the balance his speakers strike. They have a richness in the warmth region that keeps things sounding...well...rich and warm, not threadbare. And with strikingly deep bass (both Pulsar and Perspectives). And the bass isn't just "low bass," it is reach-out-and-drive-the-music punchy bass. In other words, the speakers don't just do audiophile tone and imaging, don't just play audiophile standard tracks, the are FUN and give kick and drive to all genres of music. And there is a wonderful way the Joseph Speakers swell dynamically, the way their bass warmth and punch kicks in whenever required in a piece of music, that makes music swell and breath so well. Think of the dynamics of a symphony or soundtracks. Just wonderful on the Joseph speakers. I find they are one of the greatest balancing acts of the characteristics many audiophiles seek - disappearing as speakers, huge soundstage, precise imaging, tonal accuracy, amazing detail, punch and drama. It's no wonder that they seem to draw almost all accolades at shows, and from user reports.

OK...but nothing is perfect right?

What you will get with the Harbeths is they were STILL have a bit more evenly distributed body to the sound, top to bottom, for instruments and voices. To be really picky, the Joseph speakers sound super big and full with most stuff, especially when it engages the lower midrange, but can sound thinner on thinner sounds. So for instance a high voice may be more upper throat than chest, or Miles Davis' trumpet muted will be more mouthpiece than the resonating bell body you'd get with the Harbeth speakers. So in a way the Harbeths are a bit more evenly balanced. The Harbeths also have a bit more sense of "texture," that sense of bow on string kind of thing. You'll hear every nuance of detail on the Joseph, but there is something a bit more cut-through-the-air organic in how the Harbeth presents instrumental texture and voices. You can't have everything

So, there you go. If you move from Harbeth to Joseph, you'll lose a bit of ultimate even body through all the sound, that certain characteristic Harbeth texture, but you'll gain a more pure, clean yet colourful sound, more dazzling imaging/soundstating, probably a higher sense of detail, richer punchier deeper sound from the lower midrange down, more drama etc.

Hope that helps.

@arafiq

Regarding the Harbeth vocal magic...

You may find you actually prefer the Joseph speakers, even in that regard.

It was actually hearing vocals on some Joseph speakers that got me interested!

I’m always comparing the sound of real voices to reproduced. It’s a habit. So when I audition speakers, or go to audio shows, there’s usually people talking.

When I’m listening to one of the inevitable demos with vocal tracks, I close my eyes and compare the sound to real voices I can hear talking, and it always reveals how artifical the voice is coming through the speakers. Voices sound "off" tonally, timbrally, compared to the organic timbre and tonal color of real human voices.

It’s actually been the Harbeth speakers that have tended to "pass" this test best at some shows.

However I was at one show (Montreal I think) and had entered the Joseph Audio room, with Jeff Joseph there (IIRC) and the Pearl speakers. There was a vocal acapella track playing. It completely startled me. It wasn’t so much that the voices were so clear and vivid. Vivid sound was typical in such speaker demos. Rather it was the pure realism and accuracy, the naturalness of the timbre of the voices. It just sounded bang on to the warm, organic timbre of real voices. It passed the "close my eyes test compare with real voices" with flying colors.

I was so blown away it led me to seek out Joseph Speakers at a local dealer, and again I heard a similar mesmerizing quality from the Pulsars, then the Perspectives. And again I was amazed by vocals. The Joseph speakers are so pure of grain and revealing of timbre that I found they actually made female voices sound more distinctly "female," male more distinctly "male." It’s very hard to describe what I’m talking about, but female recorded voices tend to be extra sibilant, and the sibilance can exaggerate any hash a speaker might have in that region, giving a slightly obscuring chalky coloration. The Joseph speakers sort of slightly wipe away the grain so even if it’s a sibilant recording, the subtle timbre of the vocalist is revealed with more purity. In that way female vocals sounded less artificial and more like...well...a female singing :-)

Of course, this is how it sounds to my ears. YMMV.

But again, on the flip side, the vocal presentation on the Joseph speakers is not the "BBC vocals" you get from Spendors or Harbeth. With the Harbeth theres that slightly added richness, palpability and density for voices. I found with the Harbeths (like my Spendor S3/5s which I still own) that there was always a human being singing in the mix, even if the recording wasn’t the most natural. So even electronica or pop with processed vocals, it was still human sounding in the sense of having that organic softness and body.

The Joseph speakers, in that sense, will be more recording dependent. An artificial recording will sound artificial, but very timbrally clear. A vocal recording with some richness will sound rich. Harbeth are more consistent from recording to recording in making vocals sound human in certain aspects.

So for vocals, it really depends on what the individual keys in on, because the JA and Harbeth speakers each capture some aspect of the real thing better than the other. The JA revealing more purity of timbre, the Harbeth adding a very life-like richness to vocals.

If you hear the Perspectives I’d be very curious as to whether your impressions are similar to mine. You never know.

voodoochillin,

My experience with the JA speakers and lower powered amps is limited.

In the store they sounded stellar with both SimAudio and Mcintosh tubes amps.

I can’t remember if it was the Mcintosh 75W or 150W tube amps.

Though I think I was probably most impressed with the JA speakers with the Simaudio amps. Best grip and control, but still super smooth and beautiful sounding.

At home I’ve only used them with my 140W CJ tube monoblocks, which work beautifully with the Perspectives. I did some long direct comparisons of the CJs vs a Bryston 4B3 amp in my system and the Perspectives sounded excellent with both, a bit more grip in the bass and solidity to transients etc with the Bryston, but overall I definitely preferred the tube amps for the more fleshed out relaxed sound, though the CJs also provide plenty of guts and punch.

I still don't really know about the JA ultimate requirement for power.  In principle, unless you play them super loud a lot, a well designed lower power tube amp should work well with the impedance, despite the lower sensitivity.

Note that the Soundstage Pulsar reviewer used an 80W tube amp with the Pulsars and raved, and the Part Time Audiophile reviewer reported his most satisfactory results with a 25W SS amp in class A mode.

agbrace,

I do think the Perspectives are somewhat richer sounding, especially from the lower midrange down.   I use them with some classic Conrad Johnson tube amps, which helps flesh out the sound. 

vdotman,

What was the problem with the Perspective2s in your room? Bass bloat?

I have the original Perspectives in a 13’ x 15’ room (with a large opening to a hallway). Mine are pulled out about 4 feet from the back wall. I get nice even sound with just the occasional bordering on bass emphasis.

I intend to upgrade to the graphene drivers and my only hesitation has been if the purportedly more powerful bass response may pose a problem in my room, even though the originals have worked great.

awesome arafiq !

I can't wait to hear whether I'm full of sh*t or not!  :-)

@arafiq 

Amazing.  Those Perspectives look so gorgeous.  I was blown away when I got mine and they are still among the best looking speakers I've ever had (or seen IMO).

I hope you'll give your impressions first without the subs!  :-)

Here's a photo of my Perspectives:

arafiq,

That's usually the question I get when I post those photos :-)

The explanation for the positioning is here (where I also post photos of my Thiels in the same room):

As to the sound:  Fortunately, there are no discernible sonic consequences to the right speaker being in that position.  Sometimes it's further away from the sofa, sometimes I pull it right up for more nearfield listening like in that photo.

I'm sure it works because the drivers are up higher over the sofa (same with my Thiels) and so aren't impeded at all, and bass frequencies not being directional.

So there's zero balance issues in terms of the L/R sound that I can detect.  Bass sounds terrific too!

@arafiq 

How did you end up with those matching stands under the Perspectives?

I'm looking forward to your impressions!

Sounds good arafiq !

Two things I forgot to mention about when I owned the Harbeth SuperHL5plus:

For some reason I could never get them to image with much depth.

I’ve always valued soundstaging and imaging (though tone/timbre above that), my room supports fantastic depth of soundstaging, and all the speakers I’ve owned have achieved this. But I could never get more than a somewhat for-shortened soundstage with the Harbeths, which was frustrating. Even if I moved them closer to nearfield.  My Thiel 2.7 and Joseph speakers do wall-melting depth of soundstaging in comparison.

Also, I just remembered that I actually briefly, just for kicks, drove the Perspectives with my old Eico HF81 14w integrated tube amp. And it sounded gorgeous. I don’t remember having any particular sense of the speakers running out of steam with those amps, though the bass was a bit more rich and loose, which was the sound of those amps on every other speaker I had as well.

Good stuff ewert.

As much as many of us might imagine how great it might be to own some flagship speakers way out of our price range, one thing to note is that Joseph speakers have very often over the years been deemed "best sound of the show" by tons of attendees and reviewers, almost no matter what model Joseph displayed. Sure show conditions aren’t decisive, but it does indicate that one is getting top tier sound with Joseph speakers.

As to power requirements, good to see your Luxman is working well with the Perspectives. It’s an interesting situation with the impedance of the Perspectives, since...from my meager understanding of these issues...the Perspectives don’t go down to 4 ohms so with solid state I presume you don’t get the benefit of power doubling in to those lower ohm ratings. Which is why the higher ohm ratings are good for tube amps (helpful because tube amps don’t double their power if the ohm rating goes low).

140w of tube power drives my perspectives certainly much louder than I can handle.

And we agree about the Perspectives with drums. As I wrote in my other long speaker comparison thread, one of the things that attracted me to the Devore O/96 speakers was how they sounded with drums - the way kick drum power seemed to come out and roll over you like the real thing, vs lots of audiophile speakers where the bass sort of sits back in the soundfield, holographically.

The Perspectives have some of that Devore-like bass quality with bass.   Yes bass imaging is quite precise, but there is a roundness and warmth that reaches out and rolls along the floor, so you get the feel of what the drummer is doing on the bass drum. And snares have surprising heft as well on the Perspectives.

I’m looking forward to @arafiq dropping back here to give us his detailed report!

pdreher

Yes, that's true "pound for pound."

On the other hand, of one prefers the overall Harbeth sound to Joseph Audio, I can see liking the SuperHL5plus better than the Perspectives.

For me, though, the Harbeth couldn't offer me the thrill-factor of the Perspectives.

The Harbeths were wonderful and cozy to listen to, I really liked them.  But the transparency and purity, and wall-melting imaging show...and punchiness...of the Perspectives just took things to another level.  Almost hallucinatory on some stuff.

joc3021

As I remember Jeff Joseph showed the Perspective 2s in Munich in a large room and people were wowed by the sound.

16 x 30 is certainly very big so who knows?  But also...how close will you be sitting?  That would matter too, obviously.

(I also had dual subs for a little while with my Thiels, which have the same frequency range as the Perspectives.  I found I didn't need them either.  And actually, having tube rolled KT120 tubes in to my CJ premier 12 monoblocks for the first time a while back, the increase in bass response makes subwoofers feel even less necessary).

bjesien

I can't speak to the Verity Otello model, but I was fairly familiar with Verity speakers of the past, especially the Verity Audio Parsifal Ovation speakers, which a friend had for quite a while.

My general take on the Verity sound up to that time is that they were a very easy to listen to, smooth speaker, with nice texture for good string tone etc.   They had a sort of automatic "vinyl" tonality to my ear.  So I always found them easy and inviting to listen to.  Also nicely controlled from top to bottom, and did excellent soundstaging.  Plus the design was very room friendly.

In a way I'd say the Verity speakers truck me as almost a 1/2 point between the classic Spendor-like sound, and a more modern speaker.

Still going on memory compared to my current experience with Joseph Audio: for me the Joseph sound is more engaging, more pure in terms of timbre, a bit more clean and clear, a bit less texture than the Verity, but also cast a bigger sound for their size than the equivalent Verity speaker.  (The Parsifal's always disappeared and soundstaged really well, but didn't really sound "big" in terms of instrument and soundstage size, in any surprising way).

Also I find the Joseph speakers with their punchy bass have more fun factor.  The Verity speakers of my experience aren't something I'd leap to put on my Funk or Dance  records.

FWIW...

I would like to hear a newer Verity speaker sometime.  I don't know how much they've updated their sound.

Dang, I hope @arafiq has had time to listen to his new system!  :-)

@arafiq

What a great review! Obviously it aligns almost exactly with my own observations.

You hear what I have with the Perspectives: I found that for whatever reason, I'm always more aware of the reverb/acoustics with the Perspectives.   They seem to bring out and present the very specific reverbs in artificial tracks, and reverbs in acoustic recordings, such that I’m more aware of the acoustics of any recording. And as you say, it seems to set the sound within those acoustics in a wholistic manner.

Nice to hear you felt you didn’t even need subs a lot of the time. I didn’t feel the need for subs either and I understand the graphene version increases the bass response even more.

And, yeah, the way the Perspectives swell in impact and scale with the music!

I’ve said before, if I combine all the strengths of the Perspectives - incredible transparency and detail, grain-free and smooth, incisive but totally fatigue-free high frequencies, massive disappearing imaging/soundstaging act, rich tonality, and fun juicy bass - the word that always came to mind was "luxurious." It’s the sonic equivalent of an elevated meal cooked by a great chef in a high end restaurant, who has put all the elements together in a sumptuous way that hits the "bliss zone."

:-)

I've mentioned that the Harbeth have a bit more natural "texture" vs the Joseph speakers (which are super smooth).  I've found that my CJ tube amplification, especially my CJ preamp, gives a bit more body and cut-through-the-air texture to the sound, so it gets closer to the best of both worlds.  (Vinyl helps with that as well).