Spendor A6 vs Harbeth Compact 7ES-3

The c7es3 is a perfect jazz and classical speaker. . A little research would lead you to never buy them if your preference was rock and roll at higher volumes. If you like, vocals, jazz, Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan at reasonable volume levels, they're some of the best you can get. Obviously the rest of the chain matters and my least favorite was a class a/b amp and my favorite is a 30 watt class A amp. Harbeth's like tubes as well, but the class A is pure magic.

Melville, it is unfortunate that the C7ES3 isn’t working for you. FWIW the Harbeth is a slightly warm and dark sounding speaker hence a more upbeat and dynamic amp would be more suitable if one is looking for more excitement in the music. If I am not mistaken, Jeff Day had compared the Lavardin IT and Leben CS600 with the Harbeth 40.1 on Positive Feedback and consistently found the IT to sound slightly warm, soft and dark next to the Leben. Perhaps the smooth sounding Lavardin IT may be the reason it sounded boring when matched to the C7ES3. I do not have experience with the Lavardin but have tried at least half a dozen amps on the SHL5s and there are some amps that can really bring the Harbeth to life. The Harbeth can sound a bit lacklustre and boring with smooth sounding amps.

Other possible factors that may contribute to the dull presentation of the Harbeth are speaker placement, speaker stands, source equipment and the listening room. If the Harbeth still sounds boring after all these issues are addressed, the speaker is probably not the one for you.

There's that "music specific" thing again…ahem...classical and jazz can be as kick butt and dynamic as ANY music anywhere, and it's only loudness (controllable) ability that differs among speakers, and that has more to do with amp choice. A great sounding system can play anything well…or it's not so great.

the question is:is there such system at this price point which can play everything well:)?
Anyway,harbeth sounds great with tubes ,midrange magic happens,while SS sounds Ok

Any good sounding speakers with one or two musical subs can reproduce anything well. My perfect Silverline Preludes cost 400 bucks used a few years ago, both my mint condition REL subs were bought used for 200 bucks each, lots of used cables and cables I’ve assembled (shrink wrap…love that stuff), tube amp bought new (factory modded Jolida 502p…1200 bucks or something 5 years ago), etc, etc. My system sounds amazing loud, soft, playing jazz trios, loud kick drum, Billy Gibbons, pink noise, white noise, utter silence, Bulgarian Death Mumble-core, gigantic orchestral bombast, solo mandolin, and possibly banjo but I’ve never tried that (wait...Fleck…I guess I have tried that…).