Harbeth HL5 vs Magnepan 1.6qr Who wins??

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...

The reason I asked how you got to this choice is that they are so different. I've noticed that most folks that love Maggies find it very difficult to switch to a box speaker, ther render space so differently. Which is not to say the Maggies are better, they are what they are and some people get hooked on how they project sound. That being said, I think the the Harbeth speakers are really accurate at getting timbre right and if that is a priority I would choose them for that reason. I think it is really hard to say which is better overall as they are strikingly different in what they do. If you love your Maggies, I would proabably get a bigger version for my next move.

>>Which speaker is the best overall performer?

Depends on what "your" overall preferences are. For me, it has been the Maggies for the last 10 yrs. I haven't found another speaker that does the human voice so well, that is, until about a year ago when I got a pair of custom 2 ways. They do voices extremely well and are 10db+ more efficient so the dynamics are noticably better. So it's back to preferences. The Maggies are still special to me so I use both sets in my listening room.

Pubul57, exactly, I fell for the maggie sound over 2 decades ago. When I replaced my MG1s, it was natural to take a pair of the 1.6s home.
Never heard the Harbeths, but the Paradigms I heard did impress but at a price higher than the maggies.