John Atkinson wrote about the Harbeth HL-P3ES-2 in April 2007 (Vol.30 No.4):
I reviewed the original version of this minimonitor in December 1993, and John Marks commented very favorably on the sound of the ES-2 version in October 2005.
A sealed-box two-way, the HL-P3ES-2 (footnote 1) uses two magnetically shielded drivers: a 5.5" (110mm) plastic-cone woofer and a 0.75" (19mm) ferrofluid-cooled aluminum-dome tweeter, the latter protected by gold-colored wire mesh. Both units are rabbeted into the veneered front baffle, which, unlike the BBC LS3/5a's, is not set into the cabinet.…
Sidebar: JA's 2007 Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Classé cdp-202 DVD/CD player, Ayre C-5xe universal player; Mark Levinson No.30.6, Benchmark DAC 1 D/A processors; Slim Devices Squeezebox WiFi music processor with Apple Mac mini running OSX for media storage.
Preamplifiers: Mark Levinson No.326S, Audio Research Reference 3, Ayre K-5xe.
Power Amplifiers: Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks, Halcro dm38.Loudspeakers: Revel Ultima Studio, Era Design 4, PSB Alpha B1, Rogers LS3/5a (1978 samples), Stirling LS3/5a (2006 samples).
Cables: Digital: Kimber Illuminations Orchid AES/EBU…
Sidebar: 2007 Measurements
The HL-P3ES-2 was slightly more sensitive than the LS3/5a, at an estimated 83.5dB(B)/2.83V/m, close to the specified 83dB. However, its plot of impedance magnitude and electrical phase angle against frequency (fig.1) revealed it to be a more demanding load, with a minimum value of 3.9 ohms at 165Hz and a combination of 6 ohms and –42° phase angle at 100Hz. (The specification describes it as a nominal 6 ohm load.) The peak of 21.5 ohms at 63.5Hz indicates that the tuning frequency of the sealed enclosure is significantly lower than the Stirling LS3/5a's 81Hz. The…
Some folks claim to have actually seen the legendary Bigfoot, the enormous, manlike beast said to roam the backwoods of the Pacific Northwest. Others have stood in his footprints or plucked foul-smelling patches of hair from trees he has recently passed. A few have gotten close enough to take vague snapshots or shaky video clips of the beleaguered creature. One or two attest to frightful chance encounters with him. His size alone has given rise to rumors that he is dangerous, but no firm evidence has ever been produced to substantiate this. There is irrefutable evidence of a different…
Mr. Bumble was crushed. He felt sick to his stomach. Angry and humiliated, he maintained his composure long enough to ask Dr. Grinder to give him a day to consider it. They agreed that that was only fair, considering all of the time he had spent for Dr. Grinder's benefit. When Dr. Grinder had gone, Mr. Bumble placed a call to Mr. Rosy, chief executive of Avian Acoustics, maker of the Peregrine loudspeakers.
"Sleazy's trying to make me pick up the soap," Mr. Bumble complained. "He signed the same contract I signed. He's not supposed to sell outside his area. Why do you let him get…
With demand running high, Ecstatic Audio goes into overtime production on the Behemoth, and quality begins to suffer. The second run of amplifiers has reliability problems. Or owners begin to report performance anomalies in their Behemoth or compatibility problems with other high-end audio gear. Or Ecstatic Audio is rumored to have financial difficulties. Or they release a Mk.II version of the Behemoth before the ink has dried on the Mk.I's reviews. The Behemoth Mk.II is either: a) "much better" (to use a reviewer's superlative) than the Mk.I, which reduces the Mk.I's desirability/price, or b…
"The 'Vietnam' goods were being gray-marketed into Singapore, Thailand, and Hong Kong. They were undercutting everybody like crazy. It cost the legitimate distributors in those countries a tremendous amount of business, and it cost us a lot of business. When we found out what was going on, we had $40,000 worth of orders in the house for the Viet Tien Sewing Machine Company---a substantial amount of money. We told them we were back-ordered. A month later we told them the same thing. We never officially cut them off, but in reality we cut them off immediately when we found out what they were…
"Say I have a CD player I want to sell. I've had it for a couple of years and now I might be able to get half of list for it, more or less. I have to compete against a dealer trying to unload his demo unit of the same kind at a lower price, and with a warranty. I'm taking a bath on it, while he's used it as a sales tool for two years and at the same time has written it down as a business loss. Is that fair to me as a seller? You can't play both sides." Playing both sides is an issue that raises David Manley's hackles, too. He tells of an afternoon he spent in one of the oldest, most well-…
But even with its dangers, and problematic as it is for dealers who work primarily person-to-person with their customers, mail-order---be it legitimate, gray-market, or otherwise---serves an important purpose. Millions of people in small towns and isolated rural communities have no other access to the goods and services big-city dwellers take for granted. They depend on mail-order in much the same way suburbanites depend on shopping malls. Likewise, specialty dealers in small towns must exploit all the potential that mail-order has to offer them if they wish for anything more than mere…
Letters in response appeared in the August and September 1996 issues of Stereophile High-end Parables
Editor:
In the June Stereophile ("Invaded by the Grays," p.78), Barry Willis did a terrific job of pointing out the problems of free enterprise in the High End. What he failed to do was to explicitly define the solution to the problem. Perhaps he thought it was sufficiently obvious, given the many allegories he provided. In any case, I believe that the solution should have been made more explicit.
The story of audiophile Dr. Grinder and his search for the best deal on…
