Harbeth Monitor 40.1 specific

[Haddock]

I have not heard the SLH 5's but enjoy my M40.1's since almost 2 months now.

The M40.1's are quite fabulous overall and certainly not boomy or slow in the bass in my 9 m x 4 m listening room. Having sisal and coconut carpets on the floor and 2 wide library furniture helps of course to get a lively yet resonnance free room.

I can hardly imagine more clarity combined with such a warmth, tonal truth and balance. They are also fast, agile and dynamic.

Only the sensitivity is rather low but they are easy to drive and you will not want to listen to them louder than the real instruments or voices anyway, as you'll notice immediately that it's not sounding as right anymore ... you just need a good, fast amplifier with enough headroom. to handle the peaks

In fact, i'm in the process of getting now a slightly more powerfull amplifier than my excellent 45 watter

[moqadam]

Thank you very much to all for helpful reply. And thank you Jmohd for the nice pictures? surely a wonderful room listening you have.

I assume absorbents and damping room could be important in my situation, so I will look into that.

Surprisingly Haddock you are using very low watt AMP! I have Krell full power balanced 200 watts per channels, its not only matter of 200 watt! But it is full power balance design, which is a huge size and wight too! I just hope shouldn?t sound louder or harm the speaker.

[hifi_dave]

Thank you very much to all for helpful reply. And thank you Jmohd for the nice pictures? surely a wonderful room listening you have.

I assume absorbents and damping room could be important in my situation, so I will look into that.

Surprisingly Haddock you are using very low watt AMP! I have Krell full power balanced 200 watts per channels, its not only matter of 200 watt! But it is full power balance design, which is a huge size and wight too! I just hope shouldn?t sound louder or harm the speaker.

The M40.1 is a robust speaker and I've never come close to over-driving them. Anyway, you have a volume control on your amp to allow you to set your preferred and safe listening level.

[musicquest]

Hi hifi dave,
I'm curious about the Something Solid stands you're using with the 40.1's. Did you just happen upon them or did you do much comparison? Have you compared them with Skylans?

I'm pleased you listed your room dimensions, mine are identical. Good to know I can upgrade to the 40.1's!

Are the Something Solid stands available in the States? I see Signals carries them, and I imagine you as well.

Cheers
MQ

[P.C.]

I'm pretty certain the Simple Solid stands are unavailable in the States. But read this review for the best 40.1 stands available anywhere!... rather expensive though!
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Iss...tic_revive.htm

[musicquest]

just a tad, I'm afraid.....
at least Alan will have something to write about....

[hifi_dave]

I don't believe the Something Solid stands are available anywhere other than GB. The manufacturer is a Hi-Fi enthusiast and makes them for 'love' and 'fun' rather than as a living because he has a proper job. That's not to say that he would be averse to making a few to be exported.

Over the years I have tried many mass loaded stands with all sorts of speakers but since the inception of these SS stands, they are all I have sold. I haven't used Skylan because they are not available here but I have tried similar.

The Something Solid stands are fast, clean and communicative whilst the usual mass loaded jobbie is (in comparison) fat, bloomy and slooooow. The SS id a rigid, light stand which couples the speaker to the uprights via carbon fibre pucks. This allows dissipation of energy as speedily as possible whilst holding the speaker rigidly in place. The mass loaded stand holds onto the energy and releases it slowly resulting in a 'smear' which is why they sound slightly better when the speaker is decoupled from it. So I believe.

[harbethpr]

I heard Alan mention his appreciation for the kind words regarding the correspondence with the gent and then something like "Clearly we're in the wrong business". I think that is what he said. Not sure if he means he should be in stand manufacture, room acoustic design or journalism. Maybe all three?

[hifi_dave]

The grass is always greener !!!

May I ask, which 'gent' ???

[harbethpr]

The journalist/reviewer. Mr. Day. Comments in his review of the stand.

[P.C.]

I personally feel that the price of those stand are far too high, but if we decide to believe Jeff's words on what they actually achieved in his room. One should at least take into account the money he's now saved on what are often unsightly and equally expensive room treatments . If the stands are really as important as he argues ( and in his defensive he did a direct comparison with the excellent Skylan) then maybe we should take the review seriously and hope that a cheaper but equally significant stand will one day appear.

[musicquest]

P.C.
my initial reaction was similiar. I thought, well, in the states that's almost a 23k speaker, why not move along to another speaker entirely. But, Jeff Day loves the Harbeth sound, so why not make it sound the best it can in his room? He was obviously having some sort of bass issue, and now it's gone, albeit an expensive fix. He does state that other areas improved as well.

So good for him, and yes, maybe some day we can benefit from the trickle down effect, or the lottery.....
I did like that in his article the photos were matched superbly with the descriptions. Other reviewers please take note.

[EricW]

P.C.
. I thought, well, in the states that's almost a 23k speaker ...

Surely part of what makes the stand so expensive is that it's a completely custom-built, one-off product. But there's no obvious reason why it would have to be. It's hard to see why, even granted that it's an effective design and does what Jeff says (and, having bought a product or two on the basis of Jeff's reviews, I'd take what he says seriously, as I think he's a reviewer who, whatever you think of reviewers in general, is very alive to how music communicates), you couldn't reproduce the basic elements of the design and materials at a far lower cost. Maybe you wouldn't get 100% of the performance, but I'm betting a determined engineer could get 95% of the performance for 10 or 15% of the price.

[musicquest]

perhaps, perhaps not....

sometimes it is the little things.....I'm very much enjoying the newest tweak that Noel gave me when I bought his Skylan stands, the ceramic magnets between stand and speakers. It is the clearest, cleanest, most detailed sound that I have yet gotten out of my Harbeths.
If Jeffy boy is getting something way better than that, he is indeed a lucky man....and lucky to have his industry accomodation, to be sure....

[garmtz]

Can you elaborate on the ceramic magnets? What brand are they?

[Jmohd]

perhaps, perhaps not....

sometimes it is the little things.....I'm very much enjoying the newest tweak that Noel gave me when I bought his Skylan stands, the ceramic magnets between stand and speakers. It is the clearest, cleanest, most detailed sound that I have yet gotten out of my Harbeths.
If Jeffy boy is getting something way better than that, he is indeed a lucky man....and lucky to have his industry accomodation, to be sure....

Pls post some pictures of the ceramic magnets. Which Harbeth speaker?

[hifi_dave]

I don't think it's the 'magnet' which is important here, it's having something very hard. In this case it's ceramic material but you could also use graphite, sapphire , diamond (not likely) or any very hard material.

On the Something Solid stands which we favour, the interface between stand and speaker is carbon fibre. Small pucks of it enable speedy transfer of energy from the speaker cabinet to stand upright and thence to the floor and away.

[musicquest]

Thanks, hf dave, I'll have to try some. Someone mentioned on here earlier using carbon cones to great effect. I agree, I doubt it's the makeup of the magnet that is doing the magic, although it does attach itself to the metal rods in front quite nicely. I'm not sure what kind of magnets these are, Noel/Moray said they were ceramic refrigerator types...they're about 7/8 inches diameter and 1/8 inch thick.
I've tried oak wood buttons, herbie's fat dots, flat on the stands, and just coupled with blutak, and the magnets are the best by far so far. Herbies also has ebony wood buttons I'd like to try.

Or there's always the Acoustic Revive pucks that J Day was using.....pricey, I'm sure.

[A.S.]

Far be it from me to dampen the enthusiam for the various proposed "room tuning options" or more accurately "stand tuning options" but I, as the mere speaker designer am struggling to run with this idea. As I've mentioned before, I am entirely unfussy about the stand material or construction and recall that during the development of the M40.1 I used at various times Ikea plant pot stands, metal tubular stands and a pile of Yellow Pages. I know that I'm only the designer of the speaker and my pragmatic views are not really worth much attention, but please ask yourself how all of this stand/room magic can be possible. The wavelenghth involved at low frequencies are feet (metres) long.... and would need thick or as yet iimpossibly absorptive materials in puck sizes.

I understand that such earnest discussion about stands are a bit of a giggle and I have no issue with injecting a bit of fun into our hobby, but to try and back-fit pseudo-secience really isn't right. Is it? I mean, where is the justification that somehow the bottom of the cabinet is actually moving when playing music? And why the bottom more than, say, the top? And can you feel the top moving? By how much? A millionth of an inch? Is that something to worry about when the bass cone may be moving half an inch?

Surely it is one thing to admire a stand as a beautiful piece of art or engineering fabrication but another to justify it by applying some sore of scientific reasoning.

Just curious.

[garmtz]

The material and construction of a stand can make a (subtle) difference to the sound of the speaker on top of it. In my opinion it is not a question of IF it makes a difference, but WHY.

AS, you know the best of all that the thin wall cabinets that Harbeth speakers use are not dead at all, but are critically damped to reduce radiation of sound by 30 dB compared with the sound of the RADIAL cone itself. The enclosure therefore is 'tuned' in a way that is sympathetic with the music played through them. Now, if we take a thin, flat sheet of metal with finely grained sand on it and we attach a speaker to it, we will see the sand creates all sorts of figures on the plate, because of the standing waves inside the material, creating some form of Lissoujous patterns. If we however clamp one side of the sheet, the patterns change radically.

Can we somehow translate this in the way the stand interacts with the speaker? If the stand is light, and the speaker decoupled from it, the stand will have less effect on the enclosure resonances. If the stand is heavy and the speaker is coupled to it with Blu-tak for example, it couples the mass of the stand to the enclosure, which surely must have some overall effect.

Perhaps this can be measured by placing an accelerometer on one of the sides of the speaker and comparing the waterfall spectrum of the speaker coupled to a heavy stand (with Bu-Tak or a spike) with that of a speaker decoupled from it (with sorbothane or similar).