Harbeth SHL5

[sidvee]

Guys - I am sorely tempted to pull the trigger on these. My only concern is the customs pound of flesh that our esteemed govt. will demand:sad:
I have fallen in love with these after listening to them extensively at the Audiokarma show in Detroit a few years back - IMHO they are the best speakers under $10k that I have ever listened to. Do any of our gentle members have experience importing higher end speakers? Cutoms duty? local taxes? Other ripoffs?hyeah: BTW I am located in Hyd.


AudiogoN ForSale: Harbeth Super HL5

Cheers
Sid

 

[arj]

Sidvee, you will HAve to pay duty on the *declared* value ( most vendors might consider showing a lesser value). i prefer using a shipping agent like Fedex/Schenker/DHL as they take care of the duty and take it from you later...so no haggling with customs for you.

 

[sidvee]

So Arj, assuming that the seller will declare $3000 (one has to consider insurance with the shipping carrier I suppose), will my customs damage be 30% - ie approx $900. Ouch, suddenly my $3k speaker went to $4k:sad:.
Cheers
Sid

 

[arj]

thats true...the option may be to get it declared at 1K as it i a used speaker. New ones may not be possible that way though

 

[odyssey]

Guys - I am sorely tempted to pull the trigger on these. My only concern is the customs pound of flesh that our esteemed govt. will demand:sad:
I have fallen in love with these after listening to them extensively at the Audiokarma show in Detroit a few years back - IMHO they are the best speakers under $10k that I have ever listened to. Do any of our gentle members have experience importing higher end speakers? Cutoms duty? local taxes? Other ripoffs?hyeah: BTW I am located in Hyd.


AudiogoN ForSale: Harbeth Super HL5

Cheers
Sid

Is that the Leben that I hear the Harbeths crying out for? :lol:

cheers

 

[sidvee]

Is that the Leben that I hear the Harbeths crying out for? :lol:

cheers

I only wish Odyssey - but if do decide to buy this pair (it will depend on the seller and his value declaration), then I guess I will have to be on the look out for suitable amplification to bring out their best.
Cheers
Sid

 

[sachi]

Sid, The Odyssey Stratos is a very good amplifier. Sure not as good as the symphonic line but for the price they are quite remarkable. And Klaus while a bit pushy on sales is great to deal with. I am quite sure the harbeth's will pair well with them

 

[arj]

I only wish Odyssey - but if do decide to buy this pair (it will depend on the seller and his value declaration), then I guess I will have to be on the look out for suitable amplification to bring out their best.
Cheers
Sid

would be an interesting discussion, this one .. people swear by amps ranging from Naim to Bryston ...with LFD, Lavardin, Sugden etc etc all falling in between hyeah:

 

[Asit]

Hi Sid,

I have never heard the SHL5, but I have read a huge amount of material on it a few months back. My impression is that these speakers go with a lot of good amps very well.

Generally people say that one needs to pick the speakers first because they produce the sound after all and the amp to drive them later. I also used to subscribe to this view for a long time. But over the years a lot of observations have made me think otherwise now. Now I think (of course a very personal opinion) the amp should be chosen first and speakers later to match them. One obvious reason is for a given price point there are always a very limited choice of good amps that one may like and usually there exists a lot more choice of likable speakers.

However, in the specific case of the SHL5, it seems to me that one may go with the speakers first and later choose a suitable amp to drive them simply because these will sing beautifully with many good amps.

Disclaimer: All the above is my personal opinion and with my limited knowledge I may be completely wrong. It's just a viewpoint and the SHL5 may be an exception to the viewpoint.

Regards.

 

[arj]

Disclaimer: All the above is my personal opinion and with my limited knowledge I may be completely wrong. It's just a viewpoint and the < >may be an exception to the viewpoint.
.

Asit..Loved your disclaimer hyeah:

 

[sidvee]

Hi Sid,

I have never heard the SHL5, but I have read a huge amount of material on it a few months back. My impression is that these speakers go with a lot of good amps very well.


Regards.

Asit - You are right - these mate well with a variety of amps. I have already pulled the trigger on the odyssey stratos extreme and I have a pair of quicksilver mid mono push pull monoblocks (which are a stereophile class b rated design) and also a bel canto s300 (also rated stereophile class b), so if I do decide to go with these speakers only thing missing will be a SET design considering that I have a conventional solidstate, a class D solidstate and push pull tube design. Let me see what will work the best - of-course all this will be if i do buy them - which i am not convinced fully yet because of the big customs bill:sad:
Anyways if i don't buy i should be ok with my B&W N805 and Usher be718 for now methinkshyeah:
Cheers - Sid

 

[sidvee]

Hi audio_engr,
So far I have been consistently preferring the N805 in areas such as treble extension, smoothness, air, mid range lushness, bass extension and roundedness, image specificity, overall resolution, soundstage width and depth, PRAT. When dealing with dynamics both are quite adept, with the Usher having the edge . Ultimately what I believe in is the fact that I have not been able to pair the Usher with a good old fashioned decent powered class a/ab solid state amp., having used it with the quicksilver (50 -60 watts) and the bel canto (150-300 watts). Now that I have acquired the Odyssey stratos - it remains to be seen whether amplification was the one area which was holding back the 718's - which it seems - at-least from reading all the hi-fi rags out there which have unanimously praised the be718.
Cheers
Sid

 

[unleash_me]

Sidvee, you will not be disappointed with this one! After acquiring my SHL5, I'm sure I will not be looking for an upgrade for a very very long time.

 

[sidvee]

unleash_me,
did you import yours? If so how was the experience?
cheers
sid

 

[unleash_me]

Sidvee, I bought it locally in Saudi. Wonder how my experience will be when I finally bring it down to Blore

 

[sidvee]

Sidvee, I bought it locally in Saudi. Wonder how my experience will be when I finally bring it down to Blore

If you bring it as part of your luggage - which would be a herculean task - due to their size and weight - you can get away cheaper explaining to the customs people - at-least that has been my experience in Mumbai and Hyd., wherein I have payed 0 duty in most cases.
Good luck
Cheers
Sid

 

[square_wave]

@Unleash,
The SHL5 with the Mac is going to be awesome. Ashok, give me a buzz when you finally get it to town. Never heard a harbeth

@sid,
Your comparison of the B&W and the 718 be is interesting. The Bel canto with 300 watts sure would be enough for them 718's, don't you think so ??

 

[unleash_me]

@Unleash,
The SHL5 with the Mac is going to be awesome. Ashok, give me a buzz when you finally get it to town. Never heard a harbeth

Sure Vinny, anytime!

I haven't tried with a mac source yet. Currently play .wav from PC using foobar2k/wasap.

EDIT: YGPM

 

[sidvee]

@sid,
Your comparison of the B&W and the 718 be is interesting. The Bel canto with 300 watts sure would be enough for them 718's, don't you think so ??

hi square_wave - That is what i thought so too, but for some reason the bel canto is unable to grip the woofers of the 718's well enough. I still hear wooly bass, ie ill defined- which is consequently deteriorating the whole audio spectrum. I dont know if it has something to do with the digital switching design but i am hoping that a traditional solidstage design will fix this. I know it is not related to breaking in becoz I have close to 100 hours or so on the 718.
Cheers
Sid

 

[arj]

.. the woofers of the 718's well enough. I still hear wooly bass, ie ill defined- which is consequently deteriorating the whole audio spectrum. I..

Sidvee, the ushers seem to be very finicky about amplification. I have heard of the very same wooly bass from someone else as well...that too was a 100-150W amplification.(dont remember which one though). but then there are other in this forum with pretty satisfactory ownership reports as well.