What solid state power amp are you using with your Harbeth Super HL5+ speakers?

I use the Aesthetix Mimas for my SHL5+ now. Before that I used the 60 watt Ayre AX7e. My room is 12 x 20 x 9 and even with with the Ayre, I could not cause any clipping at volumes louder than I could stand. Both amps are balanced bridged designs. 

i would say, after using various harbeth models now off and on over the last 15-20 years - if i were to have just one amp to drive them, i would select a nice warm sounding solid state unit, in the 75-125 wpc range (i listen mostly to instrumental jazz / vocals / light pop, some r&b - so i value accurate timbre, imaging, top to bottom coherency, clean attack and decay most... )

reason being that i feel harbeths have an innate midrange warmth and texture already, so tubes usually magnify that quality but it is not really necessary, especially if it comes at the expense of bass control and solidity

furthermore, harbeths have a smooth sweet treble, so once again, the classic tube sound profile can sometime cross over into being ’too much of a good thing’ - yes you can certainly excite the harbeth tweeters into harshness, but this is easily avoided

conversely, tube amps that don’t control the bass drivers well enough will result in muddy bass out of the harbeths... which have plenty (except maybe for the 30 monitor and baby hl3) to start with, but sometimes can overload a room and muddy up the midrange if not well controlled

if a touch of tube magic is still desired for the signal chain, i would inject it earlier, in the linestage or dac for instance

my two cents

hope this may help others

I run my Harbeths with a sixty watt tube amp after borrowing and trying a couple of ss amps.What I have found to clean up and tighten the bass is to use IsoAcoustic pucks between speakers and stands.The cabinets vibrate quite a bit which contributes to their warmth and smoothness,but can veer into smearing and too prominent mids.It surprisingly had a much bigger positive effect than the ss amps.Just something I stumbled onto that you might want to try.

jjss49,

Ceiling height is 7.5 ft.

I'm using a 60W Hegel H90 with my HL5+. The pairing produces holographic imaging, a deep black background, detailed midrange and well controlled bass that is deep and powerful when it needs to be. It sounds clean.

While it can facilitate some magical moments (the singer and band is in the room, etc), I find that it rolls off a bit of the high treble, hence the black background. This is apparent once I switch to another amp that is slightly  more organic but a bit more vague in soundstage (an Audio-gd Precision 1 amp).

Despite that, ambience and reverb are still very much present and immersive with the kinds of tracks that emphasize them.

They are also in a small room, 10' x 12'.