Quote:
Originally Posted by BuffaloBill
Are you suggesting that a Harbeth enclosure helps to improve the original signal?
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The original signal is created by vibrations of the musical instrument itself. There is no "improving" it once the notes fade into the past. All we can hope for is a mere recreation of it in our playback systems but it will never be the exact same duplicate. Any audiophile knows that.
I suspect you already knew that and were simply looking to troll the thread just a bit, adding no value to the conversation but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
All speaker manufacturers have their philosophies and ways with dealing with vibrations. Whichever speaker sounds better to your ears and brings satisfaction is the one that you should be listening to.
As far as Alan Shaw and his philosophies and design approach over the 30 years he has been at Harbeth is well documented in many reviews, such as this review of the 40.2 from Absolute Sound.
"You still use a relatively thin-walled enclosure with lots of bracing for support and stability, but no heroic measures, so far as I can tell, to dampen resonances as such with the use of synthetic materials or super-rigid construction.
Cabinets: We do indeed live in a world where visual impressions seem to count for so much. The physics of panels—those forming a loudspeaker cabinet—say very clearly that thickness and stiffness do not guarantee low sonic contribution. Indeed, rigid panels can move the latent resonances away from the bass region and up into the midrange where they are energized by the music and can sound extremely objectionable. After extensive research the BBC concluded that a relatively thin-walled but sturdily braced cabinet could be steered by the application of damping into a state of relative inertness, in a way that no thick panels could be. This gives the thin-walled cabinet designer a whole armory of tricks for better sound."
The full review.
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/arti...2-loudspeaker/