Harbeth HL5 vs Magnepan 1.6qr Who wins??

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.

Tpreaves I had the 1.6 with a cheaper Musical Fidelity amp and it sounded pretty good but I guess the point I was making is that they need more power than most speakers and that power comes at a price.

Part of it for me is that I like tube amps and could not afford enough power to play the speakers at lifelike volumes. I tried Rogue M120 and it was not even close to enough power - for my tastes...