Saturday, April 23, 2011

The delights of a small system

Since I have the Harbeth P3ESRs in for review I've been warming them up in my second system while they wait their turn in the review cycle. They are so simple and elegant looking that I had to clear a space and set up a dedicated small system just for them. Running them with my Naim Nait II with the Harbeths on old QED tristands, I find myself drawn night after night to local NPR jazz broadcasts via my $70 Sony HD tuner, using my home made 4ft speaker cables. Via my trust old Denon 2900 CD, the sounds are sufficiently pleasing to make me think about finding a new DAC to give myself a serious second system, rather than a break-in rig which is all this setup really provides right now.  There is a lot to be said for scaling the speakers to the room, and it's easy to just be in my spare room now with the music playing, never dominating. The Harbeths are the most costly component here (at $2k for this little pair) but they work superbly. Looking forward to seeing how well they co-exist when the cost-relationship is inverted.

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