SF Guarneri Homage vs Harbeth 7ES3

So Don, are you still selling the G's on 'Gon?

Daveyf, I do still have an ad here on the 'Gon...I'm thinking these sound amazing and I won't do much better for this listening space. I have been playing with set up and they are really blending nicely with the room now. I should just keep them and become part of the GH club.

I am a proud Guarneri owner myself...sorry never heard the Harbeth. All I can add is that it would be hard to imagine a speaker sounding finer on the types of music you mentioned.

I have the M's, and was not overly impressed with them in my larger room (16 x 25 x 10)...event with a subwoofer thrown in. In my smaller dedicated listening room (16 x 10 x 8), they sound amazing...quite a transformation.

Just another data point for you to evaluate.

Thank you all for your input. I have been close to buying a pair of Guarneri's but eventually ended up buying a pair of Harbeth's Super HL-5. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to test the Guarneri's and relied on some trusted friends' mixed feelings about them -- stunningly beautiful speaker, but probably overrated in terms of its musicality and acoustic performance. Let's put it this way. I have two close friends who are professional reviewers for Italian sound magazines. Both of them recommended enthusiastically the Harbeth's I bought -- just go ahead and get them, especially if you're used to Quads ESL 57. Both of them recommended that I take a good listening to the Guarneri's before buying them...I followed their advice.