Review Harbeth Hl5+ Speakers

I purchase the Harbeth Hl5+ from an authorized dealer and they were shipped directly from the US importer to me. They must have been freshly built because they had very strong lacquer smell from the finish for the first 3 weeks. Not awful smelling but strong enough that I wished I could have opened a window (too cold in Minnesota). I bought these as replacements for my Martin Logan Vantages which served me well for 6 years. I really liked the MLs, but it was time for a change.

I bought the Hl5+ without listening to them based entirely on reviews and user feedback as there were no local dealers that carried Harbeth's. Out of the box, my initial thought was that these sounded tonally quite different than the MLs. It also seemed like they had limited lower bass. Frankly, I was initially thinking I might have made a mistake.

Fortunately, after a few hours the bass opened up quite a bit. However, I would still say they are somewhat lighter in the lower regions than the MLs. No surprise since the MLs are rated to go a bit lower than the Harbeth's.

In the first few hours of listening I was still adjusting to the new sound which is not surprising after listening to the same speaker exclusively for 6 years. Even from the get go on jazz, classical, and acoustic these sounded wonderful, clearly IMHO superior than the MLs. However, on some of my favorite classic rock like the Allman brothers, Led Zeppelin, Rush, etc. I was not very impressed. My favorite rock music just sounded like it was thin sounding and tonally not what I was use to hearing.

After a few days I think the HL5+ were completely broken in. I know Alan Shaw says they only need a few hours to break in bass drivers, but I feel it took a couple days either for me to adjust, or for the speaker to completely break in.

I didn't have the cycles early on to adjust the speakers properly, I basically just plopped them down in the general area that every other speaker in my system has ended up. Essentially the potential resting spot for any speakers has to be within about a 2x2 foot square to my room layout.

Finally, after about a month of owning them I spent a good part of the day moving the speakers around to get the best sound by adjusting distance from back wall, toe-in, distance between speakers, ear height to tweeter (had to lower chair by 2 inches) and used my Bosch laser to make sure my listening chair and ears were aligned at perfect distance from the speakers.

The tweaking really helped and the HL5+ went from sounding great to sounding incredible. When I play jazz music and close my eyes it literally seems like I have been transported to an actual club. The speakers completely disappear and the sound stage is wide, deep, and the instruments are well defined in the sound stage - more than the MLs. The biggest difference is that most instruments sound real. Horns sound more like horns than any speaker I have heard. The one area I still have determined if I like more or less is that piano music like Bill Evans sounds crisp and lively on the MLs. On the Harbeth's the notes seemed to roll together more.

On vocals, the voices sound incredibly real and every nuance and texture of a singer's voice is well defined. I would say that these are much more tonally accurate than the MLs. Although I would give the nod to the MLs in overall transparency and detail, the Harbeth's are very close and just seem to do the right amount of detail to represent what the musicians really wanted you to hear. Sometimes It seemed that the MLs would dredge up some obscure detail that the musicians probably never intended for you to hear.

Overall, I would say the Harbeth's while not ultimately as transparent as electrostats, are the most transparent cone speaker I have heard. And whatever they are missing in transparency is made up for the tonal accuracy. Regarding detail, although I think there is slightly more with the MLs, on many of my favorite recordings I was hearing things with the HL5+ that I hadn't heard or maybe hadn't noticed with the MLs. I don't know if that is the super tweeter on the Harbeth's kicking in or that they simply they present the music slightly different than the MLs.

Back to rock music, my musical taste is about 50% jazz, 10% female jazz vocals, 10% classical, 10% acoustic, and 10% rock. However, for whatever reason, I still prefer the MLs for some rock music. It just seems the Harbeth's are a little lighter in bass and almost to clean sounding for some of my favorite rock. When I listen to the Allman Brothers and Greg Allman is singing his voice clearly is more accurate and natural sounding with the Harbeth's versus the MLs, but the music behind the vocals just doesn't appeal to me like it did with the MLs. On the other hand, Steve Millers HDTRACKS greatest hits never sounded better, and Jackson Brownes Running on Empty was incredible on the Harbeth's. So, the HL5+ are 90% - 95% awesome for most of my music, I can live with that.

The stands I should mention are Skylan. I bought the standard 18 inch stands but should have gone with 20 inches to get the tweeter at ear level. Luckily, I was able to modify my chair to lower it 2 inches. I filled the stand with white rice like Noel at Skylan recommended. 25lbs is the right amount to fill both stands within a couple inches of the post tops as recommended by Noel. I froze the rice at -10 degrees Fahrenheit to kill any potential rice critters and then backed it for a number of hours at 150 degrees to dry out any residual moisture. I was going to fill the bottoms with lead shot since I had some lead filled Sanus foundation stands that could act as donors. However, I quickly discovered that it was much easier filling the Sanus stands than empting them. I feel the rice filled Skylan stands work well for the Harbeth's.

Regarding aesthetics, the Harbeth's finish is incredible, these are furniture grade cabinets. I must admit the MLs, probably visually appeal to me more than the Harbeth's. The MLs always caught people eye when and they were always interested in what they were and how they sounded. The MLs get a more muted response.

Overall, I think these speakers will keep me happy for some time.