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RE: Kef Ls-50 vs Harbeth Monitor 30.1

What he thinks is better sounding and what you wind up thinkink sounds better may be quite different.

First - they won't sound the same and that is fairly obvious. Beyond that it's going to come down to preference. The Amphion's tizzy metalic sounding tweeters he seemed to be quite impressed with telling me what giant killers they are and then selling them a month later now for something smoother (ie not an irritating disaster).

Second - the Harbeths cost more to make likely because of where they are made. England versus China. Things like wages, unions, health care etc - you know caring about the plight of the worker at least a "little bit." On the flip side they likely don't invest nearly as heavily in marketing and other facilities/overhead so they may save money there.

Personally, I find the Harbeths on the too expensive side of the equation for what you get BUT I would say that they are more musical and more satisfying than the KEFs (exception is the P3 which to me is an overpriced LS-3/5a in a nicer cabinet) - but I get why some would prefer it over the LS-50. So while the Harbeths may (IMO) be too expensive I think there is higher pride of ownership and higher resale value.

Ultimately, how much you like, love or dislike the KEF is how well the treble plays in your room with your gear - the metal tweeter is a metal tweeter and you know it is a metal tweeter.

The Harbeth is going to just be able to sound more right without a helluva lot of work - even in HK in a CD shop they were up on the ceiling facing down with rubbish front end and it sounded really musical - bad positioning, bad electronics and sounded engaging. The Kefs are fussier - so while you may save some money on the actual speaker you may have to spend much more of the difference saved to get them to sound right.

I would take the Harbeth Super HL5 Plus over either my AX Two or KEF LS-50 any day of the week. But at several times the price I would kind of expect that.

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