Harbeth HL5 vs Magnepan 1.6qr Who wins??

I moved from Maggie 1.6 to Reynaud Trente and preferred the Reynaud's. I did not miss the open quality the Maggie has as much as some think you will (though that is a very nice thing about the Maggie speaker).

The bottom line for me is the Maggie needs lots of room and very good amplifiers to sound their best so part of my decision was based on these factors.

Philjolet makes an excellent point. Maggies as a speaker are relatively cheap, but if you factor in that you need very high quality amplification with them, they are proably about the same price as similarly priced speaker/amp set ups.

I compared the HL5 to the 3.6R recently when I was shopping for new speakers. I ended up with the HL5 and I'm very happy after 9 months of ownership. Both are very good speakers but I like the balance of the Harbeths just a little better.

I don't understand why a lot of folks think the 1.6's need expensive and high powered gear to sound good.I have heard them with very affordable,reasonably powered gear,both SS and tubed and they sounded great. I will agree that the larger(more expensive!) Maggies benefit from higher end gear.

I've owned the 1.6's and the more juice I gave them the better they sang, no question. They would not play loudly, whichout nasty clipping on almost any tube amp I threw at them. SS and highpowered. If you go the ARC or
Bigger Rogue tube amps that's prob fine. But McIntosh and Cary really counldn't drive them. I think 300w into 4ohm is the min you can start with. Innersound ESL amp was the best I ever heard with the 1.6qr's. I took that amp to the 3.6r's when I moved up without a hitch at all.