Gramophone Dreams #95: The Voxativ Hagen2 Monitor loudspeaker
I think I just found the perfect Herb speaker. It uses a hand-crafted 5" wide-range driver with a cone made from Japanese calligraphy paper. It rolls off around 50Hz at the bottom and 30kHz at the top. It has no crossover. Its cabinet is made of MDF that responds loudly when I tap it with my fingernails. Inside is what its designer calls a "short horn," which appears to harmlessly disperse back-cone energy while adding energy below the driver's cutoff frequency. Mainly, though, it's a perfect Herb speaker because it is naturally phase coherent. And sparkplug fast. And completely unmuffled.
This speaker I'm describing is Voxativ's new Hagen2 Monitor. To say it is a "Herb speaker" is to distinguish it from a John, Jason, or Kal speaker, or even a Ken or Alex speaker. If you want to know what kind of sound an audio reviewer values, notice which speakers they embrace, how well they understand them, and how long they stick with them.
Gramophone Dreams #96: Falcon 2024 Limited Edition LS3/5a loudspeaker, Lyra Delos phono cartridge
The story goes that starting in 1962, Malcolm Jones was KEF's "first employee," where he "did most of the design and development of the legendary KEF drive unitsthe B139, B200, B110, T15, T27and the systems in which they were incorporated. Malcolm left KEF in 1974, having just completed the Reference Series 104 system and work on an active professional monitor to work full time at Falcon Acoustics Ltd."
Fast-forward a few years. I bought my first BBC LS3/5a in 1980. It was a Falcon Acoustics kit I saw advertised in the back of Speaker Builder magazine. Fingers crossed, I sent a postal money order in a thin Air Mail envelope to what I imagined was a garden shed in England. But of course it wasn't.
Harbeth BBC LS5/12A loudspeaker
In the ice-cream world, chocolate is the universal end of the line. Vanilla experiments that taste great but look foul, maple syrup flavors that are more maple than syrup, tutti-frutti that's too tutti—all are recycled as chocolate flavor, their visual sins permanently hidden from view. In the world of wood, the equivalent of chocolate ice cream is the ubiquitous "black ash" veneer. The original color and character of the wood are irrelevant: it all ends up stained black.
Harbeth HL-P3 loudspeaker
Back in the early 1970s, the BBC needed a physically unobtrusive, nearfield monitor loudspeaker for use in outside-broadcast trucks. Accordingly, they instructed their design department, which at that time featured such luminaries as Dudley Harwood (the "father" of the polypropylene cone, who went on to found Harbeth) and the late Spencer Hughes (the "father" of the Bextrene cone, who went on to found Spendor), to produce such a model. Thus, not only was what was then probably the finest collection of British speaker-design talent involved in its development, there were no commercial constraints placed on the design. The only limitations were intended to be those arising from the necessarily small enclosure and the absence of the need for a wide dynamic range under close monitoring conditions.
Harbeth M40.1 loudspeaker
The best, most enduring audio products have in their favor more than great sound: They have some sense of history as well. Particularly good examples abound from the British companies Spendor, Rogers, and Harbeth, some of whose products were actually commissioned into being by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Better that, I suppose, than existing to fill a price point.
Harbeth Monitor 30.2 40th Anniversary Edition loudspeaker
Everything sounds like what it's made of.
I'm known for saying that, and to me, it's obvious: box speakers with dome tweeters sound like box speakers with dome tweeters. I can hear their tweeters calling to me when I'm in the next room, making a phone call. I can hear their boxes hissing and groaning even after I turn off the stereo. Many a day, I think Edgar Villchur, inventor of the acoustic-suspension loudspeaker and the dome tweeter, ruined audio, and that audiophiles will never stop denying how artificially colored the sounds of domes and cones in boxes really are.
Harbeth P3ESR 40th Anniversary Edition loudspeaker
I promise not to tell you that the 40th Anniversary Edition Harbeth P3ESR loudspeaker sounds like a bigger speaker than it actually is. It does not. Likewise, I won't suggest that it offers a large portion of what Harbeth's bigger, more expensive models doI'll leave that to the happy owners on the Harbeth User Group. But can I tell you it's good value for the money? The current, non-anniversary version of the P3ESR costs $2195/pair (footnote 1), while the souped-up, tarted-up 40th Anniversary Edition goes for $2890/pairprices I think are chickenfeed, considering all the timeless virtues and musical satisfactions I have discovered in both versions.
Harbeth P3ESR loudspeaker
Everyone wants something different from a loudspeaker. Some people value midrange neutrality above all, while others will sacrifice some of that accuracy to get extended lows or a speaker that will play immensely loud with only a few watts of power. Some want stereo imaging that is sufficiently delicate, stable, and accurate that the speakers open a transparent window on the recording's original performing space. Some will sacrifice all of the above to get a speaker whose "jump factor" can jerk zombies out of their stupor. And there are those who are prepared to lose just a little bit of everything in order to have a speaker that may not excel in any of these areas, but communicates what they want from their music in the most effective overall manner.
Harbeth Super HL5plus loudspeaker
To some, the measure of a company has less to do with the amount of money it makes than with the honesty of the things it sells: the assurance that every product in its line is designed not as a marketing exercise but as a straightforward and presumably unique answer to a real consumer need.
Harbeth Super HL5plus XD loudspeaker
What Were Once Vices Are Now Habitsthe 1974 album by those San Jose yacht-rock sages the Doobie Brotherscould also describe an audiophile's life.
The journey begins with booze and bong money spent instead on an entry-level turntable and cartridge; it did for me anyway. Then starts the churn, through many components and configurations seeking that elusive, blissful audio fix until finally we find our audio oasis, our own sonic peace, our gearhead nirvana. We achieve a system that satisfies our listening indulgences, whether it be based on streaming or spinning, class-D or tubes, with Belden wire or 0.999999% pure-silver single-strand wire that costs more than a Range Rover. It doesn't last.