Stereophile Class A Rated - Read full review here
"...the M40.1 actually was unsurpassed: I've never heard a speaker reproduce the sounds of voices and acoustic instruments with less timbral distortion or more textural realism. Brass instruments had almost shockingly believable color, and just the right balance of bite and natural decay. The sounds of fretted instruments such as guitar, mandolin, and banjo—things I hear almost every day in real life—were convincingly real and consistently enjoyable. Violins, solo or massed, never sounded righter to me than through the M40.1." Stereophile, October 2008, Art Dudley
"the Habeth 40.1 delivered excellent performance in a greater number of areas than anything else I've had in my home...I've never heard a speaker reproduce the sounds of voices and acoustic instruments with less timberal distortion or more textural realism...here finally is a speaker that achieves flat frequancy response without sucking all the life out of recorded music....I've never before has a speaker in home that offered such generous measures of all of those qualities at once." Stereophile, October 2008, Art Dudley
"I could not believe how warm and rich this system sounded. Soprano Kate Royal sounded amazingly rich on her new EMI recital, and my Channel Classics Revueltas SACD exhibited marvelous solidity. All I could manage to write in my notes was that the system's "very neutral, full sound" was "pretty damn amazing." To be perfectly honest, if I had bucks to spare, I'd be listening to the Harbeths in the large living room of our 80 year-old Oakland carriage house tomorrow. I loved, loved, loved the sound of this system. I hope everyone attending RMAF 2008 gets the opportunity to hear how full and rich the Harbeth Monitor 40.1 can sound." Stereophile, October 2007, Jason Victor Serinus
"Paired with Resolution Audio’s exceptional-sounding components, it again made my mouth water.....the full-range 40.1 monitors have an immensely detailed, beautifully layered, extremely controlled midrange whose harmonic richness is hard to resist. Toed-in toward the listener, the speakers' high end was equally compelling.....the drum thwacks on Karina Gauvin’s chamber ensemble arrangement of one of Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne were among the most realistic I've heard from this frequently played CD, as was the decay of room resonance. I also enjoyed the beautiful harmonic richness of orchestra and piano on Martha Argerich's live recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto 2 with Claudia Albano" Stereophile, January2008, Jason Victor Serinus
Every speaker line has a no-compromise flagship, and in the Harbeth family this is the highly respected Monitor 40. The inspiration of the design can be traced right back to the 1960's and the LS5/5, the ground breaking world's first plastic-coned three way monitor. Although originally developed for professional use in BBC control rooms - where many pairs are in use - the Monitor 40 has been taken-up as a domestic reference system, and where space permits brings the ultimate in natural sound to the serious home listener.
Whilst the professional version is finished in hard wearing textured paint (and fitted with a Speakon connector) this domestic version is crafted in real wood cherry or eucalyptus veneer and is fitted with tri-wirng binding post terminals for maximum flexibility. To get the best possible performance in a domestic room the Monitor 40 should be used on a tall stand and the room should be well furnished and acoustically damped - just like a traditional BBC control room. |
| “The real punch line, here, though, is something quite beside the audiophile categories and descriptions. The Monitor 40 sounds beautiful, and with the beauty of music, the beauty of reality. They are accurate, as befits a would-be ultimate monitor speaker. But their uncoloured, ultra-pure, balanced sound actually makes a great many recordings sound wonderful." |
