Shouild I Buy The Compact 7ES-3 Or P3ESR ?????

[parisphoto]

I listened to my friend's P3s mated with my JBL B380 subs, and it was divine.
The 7ES-3s were recommended as a "step up", but I'm unable to audition a pair.
Although my room is quite large, the PS3s were fine.
I'm sure that the 7s sound great, but how does the sound of the 7s compare with the 3s ?
Any help / thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

[muypogi]

I was in a similar situation a year ago, as I had my heart set on a P3ESR. Fortunately I had an opportunity to listen to both using the same system. I bought the Compact 7, as I thought the quality of sound was better vs the P3ESR. HTH.

[parisphoto]

Thanks for the response. How did the two speakers differ ?

[JJack]

I have to admit that I don't hear much of a difference between the two speakers other than that which you'd expect from the larger driver and enclosure of the Compact 7. There is absolutely a family sound to the three Harbeths I've auditioned; if you like the 3s you will like the 7s. Clear, detailed, smooth, etc. from either speaker.

I just did an extensive audition of both before buying my 7s. I could have lived happily with the 3s, but wanted to avoid a subwoofer so I went with the 7.

[muypogi]

Thanks for the response. How did the two speakers differ ?

Sound between both is similar. However, Compact 7s sound fuller and more robust with the bigger cabinet and woofers. Smaller bookshelf speakers excel in imaging and given acoustic music and vocals, they are more than enough. However, feed the Compact 7s more challenging material (like orchestral music and bass heavy music) the choice will likely favor the larger compact 7.

[Spindrift]

P3ESR is a great transducer which actually does bass well both in terms of tonality and expressiveness. Looks stunning in rosewood (Harbeth's rosewood is GENUINE Santos rosewood, quite rare these days and well worth the small extra expenditure).

[Reinhard]

Thanks for the response. How did the two speakers differ ?

Think I read somewhere that P3ESR has a more expensive tweeter of higher quality than Compact 7ES-3 (P3 is said to have the tweeter of the Monitor 30). Is that right?

[Kumar Kane]

Budget permitting, I would say the C7. It will fill a larger room with sound a lot better than the smaller speaker.

And in a larger room, one can usually give it the extra distance it needs from the walls than what the P3 does.