Harbeth and shindo : Don't do it !!!!

[Jerome W]

Hello folks,

To my great surprise, I realize that some of my posts may have a bad effect towards some readers and I have to apologize for this. I have received some messages from members interested in the combo and wanting to try Harbeth speakers and Shindo. And this also from an other audio forum !

I am NOT an audio expert, neither do I have golden ears.
My writings reflect only my personal opinion and exerience.

I do not advise anyone to try to pair Harbeth speakers and Shindo amplifiers as I did at home.

Jonathan Halpern, the US Shindo importer consider this matching to be far from optimal if not very poor. Other members share this view. Jonathan is one of the best Shindo expert in the world and his views are much more relevant than mine.
2 friends of mine ( Georges and Jean Marc ) listened to my Harbeth speakers with the Shindo amps and they preferred clearly the little MC225 driving them.

I still do prefer clearly the Shindo CCQs with my Harbeth and have no will to change anything.
I discovered a very poor synergy while using the EMT XSD15 cart ( an «invasive» bass ) and will surely sell this cart now.
I discovered that the sound improved by reducing the gain on my power amps and using the preamp at a higher volume. And the biggest improvement came when I realized that the sound came really to life after one hour of warm up of the amplifiers ( they never showed that with all my other speakers... ). I also changed the position of the speakers in the room.
Although I could not be more happy than with this set up now, this is just about my ears, my musical tastes, the synergy with all the other components of my system and my room.

All over, it is very clear that getting a great sound from this set up took a lot of time and efforts.
Please, do not follow my path.

PLEASE, do NOT buy blindly Harbeth speakers if you intend to use them with Shindo amplifiers.
The risk of being disappointed by doing this is very high!