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 Introduction and Product Recommendation

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rrstesiak




Posts : 103
Join date : 2015-05-29
Age : 52
Location : Pittsburgh, PA USA

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PostSubject: Introduction and Product Recommendation   Introduction and Product Recommendation Icon_minitimeSat May 30, 2015 7:28 am

Hello All -

This will be my very first post here; and it's probably in the "wrong area"..if that is so, please advise and I'll fix it.

Having said that, I found this very new article on Harbeth's latest offering:

(It is on Stereophile's website and the product is Harbeth Super HL5plus loudspeaker; I am not yet allowed to post links due to new membership status, but the product should be easily found)

I think that all of the people here on this forum will respect what a long-time but still corporate manufacturer has done with using such words as "a thin-walled enclosure that controls resonances by means of panel tuning rather than sheer mass" when referring to their line of book shelf loud speakers.

I especially like their seemingly similar approach and using words like "TUNING" , "RESONANCE", and then implementing engineering methods with seemingly reckless abandon all in pursuit of getting "that sound":

"The Harbeth's crossover network, built onto a printed-circuit board of moderate size, is mounted to the inside surface of the rear panel, directly beneath a 7.5" by 14.5" sheet of damping material best described as tarry stuff, which is stapled in place."

My goal here was not to try to convince folks to buy Harbeth speakers...instead, my goal is to illustrate the large and very well regarded company uses methods that echo the philosophy of what Michael and everyone here does. I always find validation never hurts.

So please check out the read on Stereophile...and let me know if anyone enjoys it.


Respectfully,

Ron
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Michael Green
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Michael Green


Posts : 3858
Join date : 2009-09-12
Location : Vegas/Ohio/The Beach

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PostSubject: Re: Introduction and Product Recommendation   Introduction and Product Recommendation Icon_minitimeSat May 30, 2015 9:33 pm

Hi Ron

Didn't see the link on stereophile but if you send it to me I can post it for you.



Smile
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Sonic.beaver




Posts : 2227
Join date : 2009-09-18

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PostSubject: Re: Introduction and Product Recommendation   Introduction and Product Recommendation Icon_minitimeSun May 31, 2015 11:26 am


Agree with you Ron!

Sonic has heard the Harbeth HL-5. They are remarkable speakers and with the right equipment driving them (Sonic means "right/correct" equipment not necessarily expensive") they convey the soul of the music and I find myself forgetting about the gear and listening to the recorded performance.

I have also heard the 30.1 and 40s. The 30 Monitor is remarkable in its clarity but the bass has less extension and hft than the HL-5. The 40 is even better but costly and needs a large room to sound their best. Sonic heard the 40.1 in a 15 ft x 12 ft x 8 ft room and they sounded heavy in the bass. And this owner used amps of 300W rms into 8 ohms with power doubling each time impedance halved so these 40.1s were driven adequately.

Sonic is however a little troubled at the recent Abso!ute Sound review of the new Supers which seem to say that Harbeth had deliberately engineered a small saddle in the upper midrange/lower treble range to offset the aggressiveness of the many recordings available today. I hope this is not the case because that guarantees an error when properly recorded LPs/CDs/SACDs come along and this would IMO be a departure from what Sonic thought Harbeth stands for.

As Sonic understands it, Harbeth employs several principles in common with Mr Green in speaker design such as light construction, elegant engineering without over building, tuned construction instead of trying to kill vibrations which always remove music. Michael takes things one step further which is to move from fixed tuning to variable tuning so you can tune his speakers to suit your specific room and environment. Variable tuning is for some reason scary to people.

Harbeth cheers cheers cheers
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Michael Green
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Michael Green


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PostSubject: Re: Introduction and Product Recommendation   Introduction and Product Recommendation Icon_minitimeSun May 31, 2015 10:21 pm

Even though I like their 2-ways with subs more, they are one of the few companies where I can almost deal with a 3-way in one box.

Introduction and Product Recommendation M1002


Introduction and Product Recommendation M1001

"As Sonic understands it, Harbeth employs several principles in common with Mr Green in speaker design such as light construction, elegant engineering without over building, tuned construction instead of trying to kill vibrations which always remove music. Michael takes things one step further which is to move from fixed tuning to variable tuning so you can tune his speakers to suit your specific room and environment. Variable tuning is for some reason scary to people."

Introduction and Product Recommendation M1003

I can understand part of the fear factor for hobbyist, but much of it is based on "looks" and not sound. Look above at Hiend001's system, or below at one of my studios.

Introduction and Product Recommendation M911

The home listener is inching their way closer, but this hobby has been so living-room-styled, that it has been sort of a reverse engineering proccess for them to go from something not really all that representative of how music sounds it's best, backward to the origin or places designed to produce music.

Tuning represents a higher level of learning, and some concept changes, which makes the hobbyist many times not think with their ears. For myself it's a no brainer, because I grew up in the studio and around odd looking instruments, but if you build a system to look more like an instrument a lot of people can't deal with that level of separation, disconnect from their living room look as opposed to a studio or hall.

They have been sold plug and play for so long, and the partial convertion acceptalble to the eye, enough to get them in the ball park, but the reasoning of sound first has not set in.

For example, how many guys do you hear talk about how carpet in a music room as a must on the floor, and yet look at how many studios and concert stages use carpet floors? None, or very darn few unless for a "deadening effect"! This is a good example of the audiophile disconnect to the producing and reproducing of music. The audiophile has writen their own book, and sadly that book leaves out much of the truth, injecting practices that are in direct opposition to the rest of the music world. Their best defense, saying the two are apples and oranges when this could be no further from the truth.

Truth is the rest of the music world "IS" tunable and the audiophile has not caught up to this truth yet.

Smile
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rotelguy

rotelguy


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Join date : 2015-03-03

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PostSubject: Re: Introduction and Product Recommendation   Introduction and Product Recommendation Icon_minitimeSun Oct 04, 2015 12:02 am

The method of tuning is the only technology that makes sense in a hobby that is about playing music.

The more we look at the MGA Viola the more I see it's importance.

my 2 cents Smile
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Sonic.beaver




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PostSubject: Re: Introduction and Product Recommendation   Introduction and Product Recommendation Icon_minitimeSun Oct 04, 2015 12:10 pm


Greetings rotelguy

Like you, I would like to hear the violas.

Tuneable -- yes, this is something Sonic is discovering with my SEA-10. While I leave it in fixed setting more of the time but increasingly Sonic is finding that every CD, SACD, LP and SP plays back different. And I can make small adjustments and the sound gets more musical.

Notice Sonic doesn't say "corrections" but "adjustments" because an LP that needs -1db at 3kHz in my system to sound perfect may need no adjustment in yours.

Yet of course all recordings should sound different given the different mikes, recording equipment, rooms, performance/recording eras when the recordings were made. They cannot all sound equally good with a single setting system. Sonic finds that this is simply illogical. What possessed me to believe this? Embarassed

Happily thanks to the influence of Mr Green, I am starting to "straighten up and fly right".

Sonic
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PostSubject: Re: Introduction and Product Recommendation   Introduction and Product Recommendation Icon_minitime

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