Harbeth

They’re simply phenomenal. I’ve tried and tested so many high end loudspeakers over the past 2 decades, and I’ve never come across anything as good a pair of Harbeths. It’s like they open you up to a dimension of sound, that you’ve never experienced before. Its not your usual audiophile nonsense in any way, and Andy Shaw, the owner of Harbeth, says that his loudspeakers are designed to be amplifier-agnostic as much as possible. So all you need is some decent amplification. What really matters are the loudspeakers. Thats what you need to get right.

These are hand made in England, like Aston Martins are. And truly, these speakers are akin to Aston Martins in the world of sound and loudspeakers. Engineered with the sound and production studio environment in mind, these studio monitor loudspeakers - irrespective of which model you choose (I’ve got the ‘Monitor 30.1’ pictured above - purchased a decade ago), are the only ones you will ever need.

The BBC design LS3/5A is the benchmark when it comes to these kind of studio monitors. Basically, Harbeths employ non-rigid cabinets (that vibrate and carry the sound energy), special driver materials, a cross-over circuit designed by the owner himself, and the usage of the human voice for testing rather than music, as is the case with most other high end loudspeaker manufacturers.

Watch this to get a really good understanding of what they do at Harbeth:

This below is the actual BBC Research Paper written by H.D. Harwood (in January, 1977), the founder of Harbeth Loudspeakers in the U.K:

P.S: if you’re looking for something to gift yourself this Christmas, this is it!