Are Harbeth S HL5's As Good As Reviewers Claim?

I have them, adore them. I love rock 'n' roll and soul too, for which the Harbeth's are great. I'm into the dynamics and detail of the recorded music, as close to sitting in a studio control room as possible ... for me. BUT, it took me a long time to get them to sound great in my room ... lots of experimenting with stands and tweaks. I thought (it was panic, really) at first that they wouldn't work with soul and rock. I was wrong, but it took work to get them to sound good. For what it's worth, I settled on an integrated -- a Luxman 550a II, which, after trying out many variations, sounds best with my S HL5s, particularly with rock 'n' roll (the gamut of Chuck Berry and Roy Orbison to Alice Cooper and Television and Ramones). And that Luxman is but 20 watts of pure class A. Go figure.

I think our colleague, RGS92, nailed it: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/frr.pl?rspkr&1227137239&read&3&4&

I think what he wrote about the SHL5s is accurate and can be extended to Harbeth speakers generally.

personally they are one of the best speakers i own and will ever own. No desires to upgrade !

I am a pro studio guy and have spent half a lifetime listening to nearfield studio monitors. I have a preference for ATC (like a good bone dry white wine) but if I had to choose my second favorite, for at home/consumer speakers, it would be these (like a rich red wine). They do everything right!!!

I really like these with low powered tube amps. You can effortless match these to the best Italian (Unico, Nightingale) and Japanese (Leben, Shindo)tubes. Very musical.

Worth all the hype and more!!!

Jimcrane--thanks for the kind words.

Now that I have lived with the SHL5s for a while, they
definitely have a distinctively relaxing personality, one that makes
me feel very drawn to the Harbeth sound. You can almost hear them trying not to be offensive at any frequency or on any recording. So far, nothing has made me cringe or wince.
There is a kind of softness that is addictive, but it is still not what I would call muffled.

The only other speaker which has made me feel affectionate towards it's unique sound were my Apogee Stages, but this was an entirely different sound, very open and present, with some lumpy bass boom on a few unnaturally equalized bass-heavy recordings. But, like the Harbeth, there was no
ruthlessly revealing character, meaning no grain, screech, edginess or metallic aspects. The Harbeths have a deeper,
fuller, warmer bass than the Stages. I would call both of them bargains.