Replacing current speakers because of ear fatigue

[qba]

Guys as I think I mentioned earlier, I always posted the same questions at the same time in another forum, where they were helping me as well, so after I updated them on my new test with the Klipsch and the Harbeth, they say it would be beneficial to the members if I share the details, so here are the details in case it could help anyone.

Harbeth P3ESR
==============
I heard so much about the Harbeth P3ESR (Original Ones), their musicality, amazing vocals, their capacity to sound the best at nearfield listening, one popular audiophile Youtuber even said that if he has to have only one speaker before he leaves this earth it will be the Harbeth P3ESR. Another one said that the mid range sounded as good as $10 000 speakers he has. I have read that the new and improved Harbeth P3ESR 40s anniversary edition and the latest Harbeth P3ESR XD, with their new crossover and more expensive parts, altered the sound of the speakers into a more bright one, making it not ideal for nearfield listening anymore.

Well after so many positive reviews I knew I needed to expand my budget and get the Harbeth P3ESR (Original Ones) to give it a try, but since is not for sale anymore and I couldn’t just spend $2000 on something I haven’t listened to it yet. I found a local audiophile selling a pair online for $1800, he was kind enough to understand my dilemma and we agreed on a week trial, we made the transaction and I took them home.

I was ready to listen to the best nearfield speakers of my life and the best vocals ever, I knew the Elacs were going back to Amazon even before I connected them because they felt like what I guess a $2000 speaker should feel like, heavy for their size, solid, well built. First, as you could see in the picture I left the Elacs on the stand to give them every fighting chance possible against these true Hi Fi speakers.

They sounded very good, with very clear voices, nice sound stage, I started to give them at first what I knew they were best at, simple music with big voices like Nina Simone, Etta James, etc. Every time I switched to the Elacs the Elacs sounded as good, but I knew it was just a matter of time before I could hear the big difference between the two speakers, I started to notice a difference but it was a very settled one when it comes to the voices, the Elacs presented the voices just a little bit different than the Harbeth, the Harbeth voices sounded a little bit more clear, but not in a better or worse way, just like in a more human speaking kind of way, but no even in a more human singing kind of way, if that makes any sense at all, so it wasn’t more musical or more enjoyable, it was more like an inconsequential small difference.

Since I couldn’t notice the big difference that I was expecting, I decided to take the Elacs down and place them on the same level as the Harbeth, I knew this was going to be it, and to be honest, there is a part of me that wanted the Harbeth to win, the money difference wasn’t relevant to me because I had put too much into this journey and I just wanted the best speaker I could have, and I was sure the Harbeths were it. Well the big difference never came, that confused me so I kept trying with different songs I’m very familiar with, and sometimes keep only playing a few seconds of nice vocals, and then before the vocals changed, tried the same part, on the other speakers, or I played big chunks, it didn’t matter.

The Elacs were easier to drive I guess because I always have to turn the Harbeth up or the Elacs down one or two decibels after I switched speakers.

At this point I said to myself ok let's try throwing hard balls to the Harbeth, I knew playing complex music was the weakness of the Harbeth, especially on a regular audiophile setup where you seat far away from the speakers, that wasn’t my case, they say that at nearfield this is a none issue, not sure how that is possible, but I guess is about higher levels of sounds. So I started playing things like RÜFÜS DU SOL, Metallica, etc, and I started to see the cracks, the Harbeths are not as dynamic as the Elacs, so it didn’t sound in places that I knew how the songs should sound, after some more of this I went back to the nice vocals to confirm what I had already experienced, and go back to complexed music again.

I knew nothing was going to change at this point, no matter how much more I listen to it, that same night after at least 5 hours of trying, I called the seller and I brought them back, bottom line they didn’t sound better or worst than the Elacs when it comes to voices, imaging, etc, maybe just a little bit different only in the voices but very hard to detect, so everything being almost equal on top of the fact that the Elacs could play every genre at every level, just made it impossible for me to even consider keeping the Harbeth.

Klipsch RP-600m
================
I had experienced these speakers in one of the audio stores and I really liked them but I considered them too big, at least at the time, they were on amazon almost at the same price as the Elacs, a friend of mine happened to have a pair as his back wall speakers, so I went picked them up and brought them home right after I returned the Harbeth.

The Klipsch sounded really good, just like Elacs, the sound stage was wider than the Elacs, not by a lot but I could hear sometimes some small sound coming a little bit further to the outside edge of each speaker. There are some sounds that were more clear or brighter on the Klipsch, like some small isolated sound that was a little bit brighter so you could hear them a bit more. Omg and how efficient those Klipsch speakers are, I had to turn down the Klipsch or up the Elacs at least 3 to 4 decibels to make them sound at the same level lol.

I was always puzzled because when I closed my eyes I could hear the mid-range and the tweeter together and what it felt like an empty space between them and the lower bass, it felt like the mid-range and the tweeter high notes were coming from the tweeter horn. But the Elac sounded like a joined wall of sound. This didn't really make them better or worst, just a different sound stage.

I did a lot of testing, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was making the Klipsch sound a bit different because it wasn’t just that they were making everything brighter like other speakers I tried last year, the vocal on the Klipsch and the Elacs sounded great, male, female didn’t matter, I tried many genres but I couldn’t make up my mind.

The Eureka moment finally came!. I tried a song I haven’t heard for years but I knew very well, “Bon Jovi - Keep the Faith”, there is a part of the song where the Toms that sit on top of the Bass Drums start playing, and in the Klipsch they didn’t sound like they should, dense, solid and with more mass, they came a bit thinner and not how I knew those Toms should sound, and for me, that was a deal-breaker, that drum needs to sound a bit heavier, for me to have the emotional impact I was expecting to get in that moment of the song. I guess that is to be expected from the Klipsch if the mid-range is coming from the tweeter horn.

I recorded two few seconds videos to show my buddy what I was referring to but its hard to notice on the videos. I recommend that if you want to try to listen to them, manually change the youtube video quality to 4K, maybe that will increase the sound bit rate, you may need to listen to the videos a few times to be able to hear it, but in person is easier to hear the thinner Toms coming from the Klipsch.

Just to clarify what you are listening to on the video, none of these two speakers have that kind of deep bass, that is my SVS SB 1000 Pro making this happens, I always test speakers with the sub on because I don't want the lack of bass from a small bookshelf speaker make me rule them out.

Elacs:

Klipsch:

Sorry for expanding so much I wanted to be as detailed as possible.

 

[TLS Guy]

Guys as I think I mentioned earlier, I always posted the same questions at the same time in another forum, where they were helping me as well, so after I updated them on my new test with the Klipsch and the Harbeth, they say it would be beneficial to the members if I share the details, so here are the details in case it could help anyone.

Harbeth P3ESR
==============
I heard so much about the Harbeth P3ESR (Original Ones), their musicality, amazing vocals, their capacity to sound the best at nearfield listening, one popular audiophile Youtuber even said that if he has to have only one speaker before he leaves this earth it will be the Harbeth P3ESR. Another one said that the mid range sounded as good as $10 000 speakers he has. I have read that the new and improved Harbeth P3ESR 40s anniversary edition and the latest Harbeth P3ESR XD, with their new crossover and more expensive parts, altered the sound of the speakers into a more bright one, making it not ideal for nearfield listening anymore.

Well after so many positive reviews I knew I needed to expand my budget and get the Harbeth P3ESR (Original Ones) to give it a try, but since is not for sale anymore and I couldn’t just spend $2000 on something I haven’t listened to it yet. I found a local audiophile selling a pair online for $1800, he was kind enough to understand my dilemma and we agreed on a week trial, we made the transaction and I took them home.

I was ready to listen to the best nearfield speakers of my life and the best vocals ever, I knew the Elacs were going back to Amazon even before I connected them because they felt like what I guess a $2000 speaker should feel like, heavy for their size, solid, well built. First, as you could see in the picture I left the Elacs on the stand to give them every fighting chance possible against these true Hi Fi speakers.

They sounded very good, with very clear voices, nice sound stage, I started to give them at first what I knew they were best at, simple music with big voices like Nina Simone, Etta James, etc. Every time I switched to the Elacs the Elacs sounded as good, but I knew it was just a matter of time before I could hear the big difference between the two speakers, I started to notice a difference but it was a very settled one when it comes to the voices, the Elacs presented the voices just a little bit different than the Harbeth, the Harbeth voices sounded a little bit more clear, but not in a better or worse way, just like in a more human speaking kind of way, but no even in a more human singing kind of way, if that makes any sense at all, so it wasn’t more musical or more enjoyable, it was more like an inconsequential small difference.

Since I couldn’t notice the big difference that I was expecting, I decided to take the Elacs down and place them on the same level as the Harbeth, I knew this was going to be it, and to be honest, there is a part of me that wanted the Harbeth to win, the money difference wasn’t relevant to me because I had put too much into this journey and I just wanted the best speaker I could have, and I was sure the Harbeths were it. Well the big difference never came, that confused me so I kept trying with different songs I’m very familiar with, and sometimes keep only playing a few seconds of nice vocals, and then before the vocals changed, tried the same part, on the other speakers, or I played big chunks, it didn’t matter.

The Elacs were easier to drive I guess because I always have to turn the Harbeth up or the Elacs down one or two decibels after I switched speakers.

At this point I said to myself ok let's try throwing hard balls to the Harbeth, I knew playing complex music was the weakness of the Harbeth, especially on a regular audiophile setup where you seat far away from the speakers, that wasn’t my case, they say that at nearfield this is a none issue, not sure how that is possible, but I guess is about higher levels of sounds. So I started playing things like RÜFÜS DU SOL, Metallica, etc, and I started to see the cracks, the Harbeths are not as dynamic as the Elacs, so it didn’t sound in places that I knew how the songs should sound, after some more of this I went back to the nice vocals to confirm what I had already experienced, and go back to complexed music again.

I knew nothing was going to change at this point, no matter how much more I listen to it, that same night after at least 5 hours of trying, I called the seller and I brought them back, bottom line they didn’t sound better or worst than the Elacs when it comes to voices, imaging, etc, maybe just a little bit different only in the voices but very hard to detect, so everything being almost equal on top of the fact that the Elacs could play every genre at every level, just made it impossible for me to even consider keeping the Harbeth.

Klipsch RP-600m
================
I had experienced these speakers in one of the audio stores and I really liked them but I considered them too big, at least at the time, they were on amazon almost at the same price as the Elacs, a friend of mine happened to have a pair as his back wall speakers, so I went picked them up and brought them home right after I returned the Harbeth.

The Klipsch sounded really good, just like Elacs, the sound stage was wider than the Elacs, not by a lot but I could hear sometimes some small sound coming a little bit further to the outside edge of each speaker. There are some sounds that were more clear or brighter on the Klipsch, like some small isolated sound that was a little bit brighter so you could hear them a bit more. Omg and how efficient those Klipsch speakers are, I had to turn down the Klipsch or up the Elacs at least 3 to 4 decibels to make them sound at the same level lol.

I was always puzzled because when I closed my eyes I could hear the mid-range and the tweeter together and what it felt like an empty space between them and the lower bass, it felt like the mid-range and the tweeter high notes were coming from the tweeter horn. But the Elac sounded like a joined wall of sound. This didn't really make them better or worst, just a different sound stage.

I did a lot of testing, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was making the Klipsch sound a bit different because it wasn’t just that they were making everything brighter like other speakers I tried last year, the vocal on the Klipsch and the Elacs sounded great, male, female didn’t matter, I tried many genres but I couldn’t make up my mind.

The Eureka moment finally came!. I tried a song I haven’t heard for years but I knew very well, “Bon Jovi - Keep the Faith”, there is a part of the song where the Toms that sit on top of the Bass Drums start playing, and in the Klipsch they didn’t sound like they should, dense, solid and with more mass, they came a bit thinner and not how I knew those Toms should sound, and for me, that was a deal-breaker, that drum needs to sound a bit heavier, for me to have the emotional impact I was expecting to get in that moment of the song. I guess that is to be expected from the Klipsch if the mid-range is coming from the tweeter horn.

I recorded two few seconds videos to show my buddy what I was referring to but its hard to notice on the videos. I recommend that if you want to try to listen to them, manually change the youtube video quality to 4K, maybe that will increase the sound bit rate, you may need to listen to the videos a few times to be able to hear it, but in person is easier to hear the thinner Toms coming from the Klipsch.

Just to clarify what you are listening to on the video, none of these two speakers have that kind of deep bass, that is my SVS SB 1000 Pro making this happens, I always test speakers with the sub on because I don't want the lack of bass from a small bookshelf speaker make me rule them out.

Elacs:

Klipsch:

Sorry for expanding so much I wanted to be as detailed as possible.

The Harbeth speakers are designed by ex BBC engineers. That speaker is basically an update of the BBC LS3/5A. This was designed mainly for outside broadcast monitoring in a small space.

It measures well, but the problem is that it is a small speaker and the last two acoustic octaves are AWOL. Some will tolerate this. I really don't like that much of the musical spectrum absent. However I would expect that properly integrated with good subs, they would sound very good. They are not high spl.speakers. so they will not shake the rafters.

 

[jakkedtide]

I have the 500m klipsch as my surround backs and they sound great I use their towers reference 8000f and love them.

I love my klipsch and my Yamaha a8a

 

[qba]

I know you guys always asked me to remove the speakers from the wall and I always answered that I just couldn't take over the whole room because my kids use it to paint and I couldn't just take over the whole room.

Well, some of that changed today, I was so curious how would it sound if I buy a pair of adjustable speakers mounts, place them alongside the longest wall of the room, separated from the wall, and move my desk back with zero concern for how much space this would take. On top of this, I did a subwoofer crawl to find the best subwoofer placement. Well, the sound stage is so much wider, deeper, and bigger, the bass is so tight and making the mid-range sound so much full, the music has never sounded this good and I feel it just can't sound any better, needless to say, I set up another room for my kids to paint and now this is just an office room

Now I understand what you guys were talking about, I made a short video to see if it could convey 1% of what I'm hearing in front of me, thanks again for all of your help I found my sweet spot

 

[lovinthehd]

I know you guys always asked me to remove the speakers from the wall and I always answered that I just couldn't take over the whole room because my kids use it to paint and I couldn't just take over the whole room.

Well, some of that changed today, I was so curious how would it sound if I buy a pair of adjustable speakers mounts, place them alongside the longest wall of the room, separated from the wall, and move my desk back with zero concern for how much space this would take. On top of this, I did a subwoofer crawl to find the best subwoofer placement. Well, the sound stage is so much wider, deeper, and bigger, the bass is so tight and making the mid-range sound so much full, the music has never sounded this good and I feel it just can't sound any better, needless to say, I set up another room for my kids to paint and now this is just an office room

Now I understand what you guys were talking about, I made a short video to see if it could convey 1% of what I'm hearing in front of me, thanks again for all of your help I found my sweet spot

Kinda like real estate, location, location, location.

 

[-Jim-]

Definitely better than close together and up on the wall.

 

[qba]

By the way, since now the speakers are sitting on the stands and can easily move anywhere. How far should they be from the back walls and from the sidewall?

 

[zieglj01]

Can you test with 12" from the back and 18" from the side walls ... That would be a good starting point

 

[qba]

Can you test with 12" from the back and 18" from the side walls ... That would be a good starting point

Thank you zieglj01 I'll try that

 

[Pogre]

I know you guys always asked me to remove the speakers from the wall and I always answered that I just couldn't take over the whole room because my kids use it to paint and I couldn't just take over the whole room.

Well, some of that changed today, I was so curious how would it sound if I buy a pair of adjustable speakers mounts, place them alongside the longest wall of the room, separated from the wall, and move my desk back with zero concern for how much space this would take. On top of this, I did a subwoofer crawl to find the best subwoofer placement. Well, the sound stage is so much wider, deeper, and bigger, the bass is so tight and making the mid-range sound so much full, the music has never sounded this good and I feel it just can't sound any better, needless to say, I set up another room for my kids to paint and now this is just an office room

Now I understand what you guys were talking about, I made a short video to see if it could convey 1% of what I'm hearing in front of me, thanks again for all of your help I found my sweet spot

Ha! You're such an audioholic now! You've got it as bad as the rest of us, lol.

You can try to explain to people how great well balanced, well placed speakers and subs can sound but you really have to experience it. I totally understand your hesitancy with some of this stuff because I was the same way about some stuff too. Once you hear how good it can sound tho, there's no going back, huh?

You even evicted the kids! Ha ha! Well, not really. Sounds like they just got themselves another room to paint in so it all worked out. Glad you're enjoying your setup and that we could help!

 

[qba]

Ha! You're such an audioholic now! You've got it as bad as the rest of us, lol.

I haven't mentally reached that step yet

You can try to explain to people how great well balanced, well placed speakers and subs can sound but you really have to experience it. I totally understand your hesitancy with some of this stuff because I was the same way about some stuff too. Once you hear how good it can sound tho, there's no going back, huh?

True, you have to experience it to understand it

You even evicted the kids! Ha ha! Well, not really. Sounds like they just got themselves another room to paint in so it all worked out.

Yep, I feel so guilty about taking over the entire room, but it was a logical and smooth conversation with the family, my wife wanted to place a sofa in that room for casual reading of the books in the bookshelf, that is now in another room, but the reality is that we have been only reading in kindles for over 15 years, we even purchased all the books we could find from that bookshelf in digital format, because of the convenient

The kids now have a bigger room to paint so they are fine.

Look at how ridiculous that table looks in the middle of the room, and the speakers are taking more space than me and the desk lol

Glad you're enjoying your setup and that we could help!

Thanks, I will enjoy it!

It was a tedious journey, at least for me because I didn't have the time to do it, and I didn't enjoy all the testing, but I knew it was the only way and in the end, it was very well worth it. Most importantly it couldn't have been done without a group of such knowledgeable people in this forum, Thanks!!!!

 

[qba]

Back to normal, is like the wall speaker brackets were never there

 

[Ataraxia]

I can't believe how much work you put into getting optimum speaker placement. In at least three iterations involving drywall and paint nonetheless.

This is what happens when one opens Pandoras Box or becomes Audioholic. I've had an account here for a few years and found your thread here. You know me as Matthew Pool at AVS forum. A while ago on AVS Forum I mentioned this:

"I'm not trying to be pushy but IMHO you should completely re-imagine your work room for speaker placement. Work is priority but no reason a little re-arranging can't allow better speaker placement, maybe even some low cost stands to the side of the desk, or clamping desk stands, or any other creative options to keep work priory, but also allow decent nearfield speaker positioning.

I think you've put together an excellent little system there and I even experience some of how good it sounds through your videos. I can't wait to see what's next for you down the line.

 

[qba]

Thanks for the reply Matthew Pool, nice to see you here as well!

I can't believe how much work you put into getting optimum speaker placement. In at least three iterations involving drywall and paint nonetheless.

I know a lot of trial following you guys' advice and every time it got better until here we are, with a room that now only has one purpose, my work environment , I usually spend around 8 hours each day from Monday to Friday in there, so I think the pleasure I get as I work it justifies it

This is what happens when one opens Pandoras Box or becomes Audioholic. I've had an account here for a few years and found your thread here. You know me as Matthew Pool at AVS forum. A while ago on AVS Forum I mentioned this:

"I'm not trying to be pushy but IMHO you should completely re-imagine your work room for speaker placement. Work is priority but no reason a little re-arranging can't allow better speaker placement, maybe even some low cost stands to the side of the desk, or clamping desk stands, or any other creative options to keep work priory, but also allow decent nearfield speaker positioning.

I think you've put together an excellent little system there and I even experience some of how good it sounds through your videos. I can't wait to see what's next for you down the line.

I remember you mentioning that but at the time it was unthinkable for me to just take over the room because of some improvement in music quality, at the end you were right all along, this needed to be done so I could truly experience what my equipment could do

I think you've put together an excellent little system there and I even experience some of how good it sounds through your videos. I can't wait to see what's next for you down the line.

Thanks, I just can't believe how good it sounds.

Matthew, I'm not that familiar with audio forums, so I'm not aware of its politics, this is why I tried not to mention other forum's names, I have been posting the same original thread in both forums as you can see, with the goal of getting as much information as I could to solve my dilemmas as quickly as possible, as a result, I found such an amazing group of individuals in each forum, with such extensive knowledge, but this came with. a price, there was around a 3 weeks period when my job performance was suffering because, I was losing so much sleep replying to the multiple posting, it wasn't easy trying to keep up with both forums, as you can see each thread generated a similar amount of pages in each forum lol, this was one of the exhausting parts of this experience, but I knew it was necessary, and some of you guys were putting so much effort in trying to help me out, that I needed to reciprocate in a similar manner.

Every time I have posted a thank you, for the help I was receiving in each forum, mentally I was saying it to both forums because you guys are both equally helpful, awesome, and knowledgeable.

 

[Ataraxia]

Thanks for the reply Matthew Pool, nice to see you here as well!

I know exactly what you mean about the forums and taking everything in and trying to keep up with replies.

I went through the same process a few years ago and also took advice from here and AVS Forum.

Nothing wrong with getting advice from multiple places IMO. I'm glad you've learned a lot and can enjoy yourself with the hobby while keeping up worth work.

 

[qba]

I'm not trying to create controversy here, but out of the two forums there is only one that makes me resize the images I'm trying to upload

 

[lovinthehd]

I'm not trying to create controversy here, but out of the two forums there is only one that makes me resize the images I'm trying to upload

Thought they had similar limits, seem to remember resizing my photos for that site at least.....but its been a while. Would be nice for it to be automatic or something....

 

[Ataraxia]

I'm not trying to create controversy here, but out of the two forums there is only one that makes me resize the images I'm trying to upload

No controversy, I can see how much work you put into all the speaker demos and keeping up with the replies. It will help other people searching the forums in the future.

 

[qba]

Thought they had similar limits, seem to remember resizing my photos for that site at least.....but its been a while. Would be nice for it to be automatic or something....

lovinthehd I always have to resize the images I upload here, never on the AVS forum

 

[lovinthehd]

lovinthehd I always have to resize the images I upload here, never on the AVS forum

Yeah I often have posted about how to resize Seems a few years ago I had to resize all my pics for a build thread over there....but the look of the forum has changed so may be different forum software now....