Harbeth P3ESR

Having Harbeth P3ESR as desktop monitors is one of the great luxuries of life, if ones enjoys listening to acoustic recordings.

Harbeth P3ESR (also called M20.1 in some markets) and its recent updated editions are amazing speakers. They are arguably some of the best mini monitors that money can buy for near-field listening to acoustic music.

These speakers inherit the BBC speaker engineering philosophy to focus on mid-range naturalness. Vocal recordings really shine with these speakers, so pure, so direct. I find their accurate tonality perfect for classical music. It is extremely difficult to get solo violins to sound natural on any hi-end speakers or headphones, but they sound just right on P3ESR. Don't be intimidated by their high price, because they can compete sonically with speakers of any price (outside the bass range). The sonic improvements in recent editions are quite minor, and the original P3ESR is still a hot item on used markets. My pair was second hand.

They are designed for near-field listening, and universally recognized as one of the best speakers in this category, regardless of price. They love simple and clean solid-state amplification and there are plenty of affordable, high-quality amps out there because 50 W is sufficient for near-field listening.

The transparency and tonal accuracy are comparable to the legendary K1000 headphones (I own four pairs). The detail and accuracy are comparable to Hifiman HE-560. It is like having world-class headphone sound played out loud right in front of you, which is almost a miracle if you consider how much more air is being moved. To be able to move that much air with minimal audible distortion in the midrange is why Harbeth has been an iconic brand in the hi-end market for four decades. The RADIAL drivers are manufactured in-house and many audiophiles consider them the most neutrals speaker drivers in the world.