Quote:
Congratulations, REG approves of your Gradient 1.5 review/measurements:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/regsaudioforum/message/33189

I note he says that he "would be interested in some in-room bass measurements with buildup information."

I now have the Gradients at my place so I can do a room response follow-up, most likely in the November issue.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

I would doubt that what ever was coming it would not spoil Mr. Atkinson's afternoon tea.

Quote:
I would doubt that what ever was coming it would not spoil Mr. Atkinson's afternoon tea.

I do note that in another thread on his forum, REG criticizes my review of the Harbeth P3ESR, claiming that my own measurement of the speaker's vertical dispersion reveal that I was not sitting on the correct axis. With the speaker sitting on 24" stands, the tweeter is 33" from the floor. If you look at the photograph at http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2277/size/big/ , which was taken from my listening position you can see that my ears were level with the top of the speaker, about 35" from the floor, which is fine, according to fig.6 in my review (on p.74).

REG says that he doesn't know of any chairs that place the listener's ears low enough for the Harbeths to be used on 24" stands. If he is talking about kitchen chairs or director chairs, yes, he is correct, because these chairs place the ears around 42" from the floor. But lounge chairs typically place the listener's ears at an average of 36", we have found.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Yes, I made that comment JA read, not REG. REG has not made any comments on his forum about JA's Harbeth P3ESR review.

The point of my comment was simply to suggest that, as much as JA loved the baby Harbeths, he may have loved them even more if he had listened on the tweeter axis. In my experience with Harbeth speakers, they always have sounded their best with one's ears positioned very close to tweeter height, and usually just an inch or so lower.

Of course, I listen in the near field where such vertical positioning is much more critical because the vertical angle changes more at close distances as the listening height changes. If the listener is only, say, four feet from the plane of the spekaers, a change in listening height of just a few inches will make substantial subjective changes in both frequency balance and the spatial presentation.

JA may well be correct that listening at a 35" listening height is fine according to his figure 6 in terms of not being enough off the proper vertical axis for any presence range suck out to develop. In a non-near-field listening position, such as in the picture, a few inches of listening height corresponds to only a very small angle off the vertical axis.

But since JA said that the speaker sounded a bit too smooth to him with the grill on, but in his measurement section admitted that the speaker measured smoother on the tweeter axis with the grill on than off, this suggested to me that the suck out was beginning to be a problem at JA's listening height.

Looking at the photo of the Harbeths in JA's room, it is clear to me that the camera was below the top of the baby Harbeth speakers since you can't see the top of the speaker in the photo. The photo may well have been taken from the tweeter axis or even below that. JA says it was taken from the listening position. That may well be true in terms of being centered between the speakers and back as far as the listening position, but the camera was less than 35" above the floor if the speakers were on 24" stands.

I don't disagree that a "lounge" chair could on average put one's ears at 36" above the floor. I have found, however, that a lounge chair tends to position one's head in a non-vertical orientation, so that the head is leaning backward a bit. Such chairs also tend to have high backs or headrests close to one's head. Neither of these conditions is ideal for perception of the best spatial qualities a given two-channel home audio system can produce. You want to listen with your head vertical and in free space for best perception of the system's spatial presentation. If you are using a typical lounge chair, you are not hearing the system at anywhere near its best.

I also suggest that anyone who appreciates the pluses of the mini-monitor design should give near-field listening a serious try. Most such speakers, certainly including these Harbeths, have superb inter-driver coherence from close up if you listen on the correct vertical axis. Listening close up also allows mini-monitors to more easily present higher SPLs at your ears, a problem for most of the breed. JA noted the dynamic limitations of the Harbeth, saying there was obvious compression at levels over 100 dB.