audiophi

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
4.55 of 5, 11.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00 from Gene Rubin Audio

Summary:
An excellent product if you have a small room and you listen to music played on acoustical instruments or to vocalists. Natural sound, good tonal balance, good timbre, good detail. Surprising amount of bass makes most recordings sound well-rounded, and even a Wagnerian orchestra sounds acceptable. As another reviewer noted, the Monitor 30 has a subtle high-end rolloff, which is not objectionable and in fact is closer to the sound of acoustical instruments in a real performing space. Fabric tweeters make vocalists sound wonderfully refined, with no harshness and less sibilance than other speakers. (The Compact 7 and Super HL5, by the way, use metal tweeters.) I investigated other brands such as those from B&W, Sonus Faber, and the Dynaudio Confidence, and I was appalled at how those other monitors couldn't handle the complex sound of an orchestra. The Monitor 30 can handle any music you can throw at it, just bearing in mind the limited bass extension. Opera Callas is a faster speaker, but there the bass extension is so limited as to be unsatisfying. Merlin is a contender, but again has limited bass.

Strengths:
Natural sound, no harshness in upper frequencies, fuller bass than other monitors, can handle complex orchestral music.

Weaknesses:
Low sensitivity requires healthy wattage from amplifier.

Price Paid:  $2850.00 from Fidelis

Summary:
The Small Monitor. I have been in search of a good pair of monitors for a year. My budget was $4000. I listened to B&W cdm 1nt, nautilus 805's, signature 805's, Dynaudio, Totem Mani 2's Revel etc. The point is I find the Harbeth if not the best among these at least one of the top. The signature 805's were pretty good but still not focused and definitely short on the bass compared to the Totem and Harbeth. Dynaudio Confidence C1 were extremly clean, fast and neutral but 6000 was too much for me. Totem has amazing bass because of two woofers placed close together but it requires a huge amp power to drive it. Even then, I still found it a bit cold and analytical to me. This is subjective but I found the Harbeth warmer yet with great soundstage. I had used B&W 602's for years and these Harbeth really released the music for me. I didn't feel it was she like the B&W and it was just musical. The only minor negative is the Bass is not as tight as the Totem which was my favorite thing about those speakers. It was a tough choice but I just felt I enjoyed the music more with the Harbeth not to say its 1000 cheaper.

Strengths:
warm, open, musical,

Weaknesses:
could be more detailed and tighter in the bass

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
This review is not for M30, but for it's big brother M40's. Harbeth Monitor 40 is their current flag ship product. Alan Shaw spent a lot of time and effort to design this and execute so well that it's really hard to imagine speakers can reach this level. 3 way design using Excel silver coil tweeters ( yes, they are really sweet). 8" RADIAL mid range driver is the core of these speakers and Vifa 12" woofers are utilized to give it the nice and solid bottom end. Every driver is matched to 0.3 db difference and the crossover components are hand pick and measured to compensate any driver variance. The pair matching is the best I have ever heard and they can easily reveal any level mismatch in your system. So, what about the sound? In short, they are neutral, un-colored, extended and accurate. The rigid but light weighted mid range driver contribute to it's natual sound and Excel tweeter give it top extension as well as very good off-axiss disspation. Vifa woofers provided articulated and solid bass. They may not go as deep as some floor-rumbling speakers but more than adequate to handle large orchistra band. They have wide front baffle (16") but they do image really well and speakers can disapper nicely if not better than best book-shelf speakers. Soundstage is wide, deep and solid. Most of all, they reproduce music like music. Piano are just like piano playing in front of you and vocals are just like vocals. No harshness, no exgerrating highs and lows and everything is just expressed natrually and efforlessly. Robert Greene of TAS gave M40 the golden ear award this year and that should say a lot about them. Check out if you are in the market of some nice speakers at any price range.

Similar Products Used:
Sonus Faber EA, Guarneri Homage Quad ESL 63 US. Spendor SP 1/2. SP100

Price Paid:  $2850.00 from Wintertree Audio - L

Summary:
Probably the best small British monitor type speaker you can get. May be a little too much for a smallish room with wall and ceiling boundaries close at hand, but I can think of no other criticism to make. The Monitor 30 is not as warm as the Compact 7, mainly, I suspect, because it does not have that speaker''s slight designed-in dip in the upper midrange. The 7 is intended for small rooms and the ''dip'' counteracts high frequencies reflecting off walls and ceiling. The Monitor 30 is a more foward speaker than the 7. More accurate overall than both the 7 and the Spendor SP 1/2. With some space around it and decent antecedents, it is an extraordinary speaker

Strengths:
Accuracy, detail, truth of timbre and tonality, natural overall balance. As with the Compact 7, bass is surprisingly satisfying for a small, stand-mounted monitor speaker. RADIAL midrange/woofer gets everything on the recording. Very subtle high-end rolloff, similar to the one on the Monitor 40, keeps the speakers accuracy from seeming unnaturally assertive.

Weaknesses:
None you will notice. It has the chief limitation of small speakers in that deep bass which lets us hear room ambience and deep foundation is absent. But this is something you are only likely to notice by A-B tests with considerably larger speakers, like the Monitor 40.

Similar Products Used:
Harbeth Compact 7, Spendor SP 1/2