Harbeth

Harbeth was founded in 1977 to bring the BBC’s pioneering loudspeaker designs to the serious listener. Today its speakers are the product of the longest-running science-based loudspeaker research program ever undertaken. Crafted around a genuine engineering core, a Harbeth delivers accurate and involving sound at home or in the studio.

Owning a Harbeth is, and has always been, a life-changing experience and there’s a model to perfectly match your listening environment and budget. Every Harbeth is hand assembled and individually tested here in Lindfield, England. Customer feedback over the past thirty-two years confirms ownership of Harbeth speakers as a truly greatest investment in serious listening.
The amount of energy we are consuming in the manufacture of our loudspeakers, spread over their working life, is around a tenth of that needed for snap-together, plastic molded speakers.
Our Harbeth factory is located in Lindfield, near Haywards Heath, in West Sussex (south of London), England is a medieval village with a unique range of houses dating from about 1300, all lived-in and beautifully preserved. The population is about 3,000 and we have a strong community spirit which is intimately bound up with what we do at Harbeth. Unusually for such a picturesque location, there is a small yet discrete industrial estate on the edge of the village, bordering open fields, where you will find Harbeth. One of Lindfield’s claims to fame is that in the year 1066, King Harold’s archers made use of the yew trees of the village on their way to the Battle of Hastings. Nearly 1000 years later the tree is still thriving in what is now a wonderfully peaceful, calming little village.

The factory is the hub of the international Harbeth operation. The main production line sees batches of loudspeakers assembled by hand each day. One day it may be P3s, the next Monitor 30s, and the next the HL5. By limiting manufacture to individual batches, it is possible to maintain much tighter quality controls. One area of the factory is concerned with testing – every drive unit is measured and pair-matched before assembly. Each crossover board is carefully checked and tested using computer-controlled equipment. Every finished speaker is again tested before shipment to ensure it leaves the factory in perfect condition. Careful packing, in specially-designed boxes, ensures a safe journey to the final customer.

Speakers

	P3ESR The P3ESR’s exceptional all-round performance flows from the perfect integration of the cabinet, drivers and crossover. Not only is the P3ESR capable of being used in a wide range of listening environments but it is optimised to get the best from any amplifier, even smaller ones because the electrical load is so amplifier-friendly. The Harbeth P3ESR is designed to give a lifetime of listening pleasure for all types of music wherever extreme clarity and naturalness is demanded.	Details
	Compact 7ES3 This medium-sized loudspeaker combines natural sound with a flair for reproducing any and every type of music from rock to opera, jazz through folk. This latest generation is the most open and enthralling Harbeth Compact ever. Critically important but hidden is the crossover. A thorough redesign, from the bottom-up, using new-technology software allowed even more time for critical listening to music and speech and to minute adjustment of balance and level.	Details
	Super HL5 Harbeth’s Super HL5 is capable of fantastic performance, producing breathtaking transparency, a huge soundstage and total immersion in the performance. The speaker creates a rich bass and sweet midrange that brings acoustic music alive. Retaining the classic ‘two cubic foot’ proportions found in the very best BBC monitors, the HL5 relies on the exclusive Harbeth-made 200mm RADIAL™ bass/mid driver. This produces a big, warm and powerful sound that underpins the incredible mid-band clarity.	Details
	Monitor 40.1 Domestic This reference monitor takes the best of the original Monitor 40 even further – a tight, dynamic and incredibly revealing presentation at a moderate listening level. The flagship Harbeth was developed from the hugely respected Monitor 40 widely used in sound editing and broadcasting, and in homes around the world. The best possible performance is achieved in a normal domestic room when the Monitor 40.1 is used on appropriately rigid stands in a moderately damped environment and as far away from the wall as possible. The in-room smoothness of response is excellent, and in a suitable room a controlled and realistic bass response down to 25Hz is possible. It’s not easy to ascribe a sonic characteristic to the Monitor 40.1: nor does it have one. Perhaps the concept “three dimensional curtain of sound” says it all.	Details

The incredible resolution and micro-detail that is the hallmark of a Harbeth conveys the listener deep into the heart of the recording. No matter how well you think you know your music collection, you’ll hear details on your Harbeth speakers that are masked by conventional speakers. Take an audition of any Harbeth and appreciate the micro-detail that’s clouded or inaudible on normal speakers – you’ll be hooked on the Harbeth super-resolution.

Harbeth cabinets employ the same constructional techniques used in musical instruments, where material selection and damping are all-important. The traditional veneered cabinet conceals a critically damped engineering solution in which unwanted internal sound pressure created by the forward/backward motion of the bass unit is absorbed and diverted from the sensitive midband to let the music flow from the speaker into the room for a warm, involving overall sound.

At the heart a Harbeth speaker is our exclusive British hand made bass/midrange drive units. The astonishing Harbeth low-level resolution is the direct result of the exclusive RADIAL-2 cone material which we seamlessly combine with the best tweeters available using sophisticated and expensive crossovers components. The result is a magical sound that fills the room from the lowest frequencies with total believability and unmatched clarity and neutrality.

Whichever Harbeth you have the space and budget for, all excel at naturalness, low-level detail and a warm involving sound at a moderate listening level. Even the largest Harbeth speaker sound natural when listened to from just a few feet away and this unique ability means that Harbeth speakers are neighbour-friendly late at night and in the smallest room. Every Harbeth speaker is engineered for total excellence and to provide a lifetime of listening pleasure at home and in the studio.

Web Link	Harbeth Website
Web Link	Meet Harbeth’s Designer on video
Web Link	Harbeth Helping the Planet
Web Link	Harbeth from 1977…