[Jerome W]

Hello folks,

Many years after my Harbeth journey, I have to give you more feed back. Since many things changed.
I owned 3 or 4 pairs of P3ESR, including Anniversary and SE versions.
And I discovered the Falcons LS3/5a and the Stirling LS3/5a.
We spent a complete afternoon with a friend, comparing the P3ESR to these 2 3/5a.
Ending up together with a cruel conclusion to the P3.
The 3/5 is a more balanced speaker, with even more transparent and natural mids than the P3.
The bass of the Falcons is also more «*real*».
Like the 30.1, the P3ESR has stunning mids, and very opened treble. But there is an overemphasis around 80/100Hz which gets boring and fatiguing with time. You really get the impression that the speakers want to seem bigger than what they are.
No more Harbeths at home. Although I could live again with the 40.1 or 40.2 which I never heard. The 40.1 had the very best mids I ever heard, no matter the price.
But talking about stand mount speakers, there are definitely better balanced speakers than the P3 and easier to drive than the 3/5.
I now have Dynaudio Excite X14 speakers in my office, and I prefer them clearly over the P3 ESR. The tonal balance is much better and the mids are still very beautiful and natural.
The Dyns Special 40 are also said to be wonderful and are a bit less expensive than the P3.
I came to the conclusion that when it comes to bookshelf speakers, Dynaudio knows probably better than anyone else how to make them.