Differences between Harbeth, Spendor, Graham, etc. ?

@donquichotte

Thanks so much for taking the time to write such a detailed, clear comparison.

BTW, I wasn’t aware of the BBC dip. What is that -- equal parts stout, kippers and Stilton? :o)

@stuartk 

You're welcome! The extensive research conducted by the BBC engineers in the 70"s, iirc, concluded, among other things, that a perfectly flat frequency response isn't actually very desirable,, i.e. it sound bad. They stated that a good sounding speaker should have a dip somewhere around 2kHz (1.5 - 3kHz?) and this knowledge was incorporated in the design of the BBC monitors of that era - the ancestors of the modern Harbeth, Spendor Classic, Graham, Stirling etc. speakers.

and Falcon.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time on the Falcon and Roger home pages. 

I was trying to find information about their speakers. I emailed them. 3 or 4 times, no response. I gave up, finally, there is no pricelist for their speakers, other than one off prices for a specific model. 

I find it irresponsible to publish contact information and ignore all requests. It reeks of terrible management. (It doesn't mean they can't have wonderful speakers,) 

Harbeth has an OK homepage, with the attitude of "we don't need a great web site, everyone knows our speakers are great.

Spendor has a 21 century web site and maybe a bit duller product line but I would trust them the most.

I had Harbeth Super HL5's for a few years with an MSB S200 power amp. Great for classical, jazz, and more acoustic music, but I found them very lacking in punch for the rock music that I listen to...

I used to own Spendor SP 1/2Es and have listened to several Harbeth models. I haven't heard the Grahams.

I prefer the Spendors -- the midrange and 3-D qualities are absolutely magic. The biggest drawback is the extremely small sweet spot -- you're pretty much locked into a precisely placed seat to get the best sound. A lesser drawback is there isn't as much deep bass as many other speakers offer,  However, I could easily live with either the Spendors or Harbeths. (I have Ohm 1000s in my main system these days which have an enormous sweet spot, but still have a pair of Spendor 4/5s in a second system -- the 4/5 is their current incarnation of the classic BBC LS 3/5a.)