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I whished I saw this earlier! I got a scuffed cabinet, I cant believe the stuck a huge quality control sticker on the box. firsts and last time for me,

Incredibly overpriced, I have the P3xds. The drivers are perfect but the cabinet is a mess, it came with a couple of scuffs, one corner scratched. That had never happened to me, to find damaged speakers in a box sealed with the quality control sticker 😆 the tell you everything about their standards I didn't return them but If I had found the drivers in the same state you found yours, I would have requested a replacement or full refund.

Thank you. ATC for me.

Typical overpriced British product.

This is a good review of the negatives of big-name speakers like Harbeth. The idea that the aesthetics of the speakers is not that important because those defects don't effect the sound. Ridiculous! If they are sending speakers to a reviewer or an audio show you know that the speakers would be perfect. Buyers deserve beautiful and beautiful sounding speakers. This is a wake up call to the dark side of these venerable speakers. They should treat buyers right. It seems that Harbeth does not care that much about customer satisfaction. Not good, Harbeth.

You sum it up quite nicely: simply not worth the money. Poorly made woofers artificially corrected with massive crossovers full of low quality components.

I bought a pair of Polk ES 20 for 300$ and they are flawless, so, I can understand your frustration for not receiving such a pricey product in perfect condition. As customers, we must sound the horn and hold these companies accountable for delivering substandard merchandise. Thanks for your video!

A bit nitpicky. That can happen with small batch manufacturing.

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Made in Britain, what are you expecting, Japanese standard of detail to attention?

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences,

I truly understand your frustration. Possibly the distributor should have opened the box and undergone a checklist?

Mini Cooper is not like a Mercedes Benz.

Ever see a British car? About the same level of workmanship.

Lol. It’s a speaker, and an ugly one at that, not jewelry to be examined under a microscope. Buy Sonus faber if you care about looks.

Not surprising, that is the quality of British workmen, many experienced workers left during covid crisis, many never returned, so workers with no experience at all were recruited (I am guessing this)... Harbeth must close down its factory in UK and need to move the production to China where work quality is much higher, and further if Harbeth make a better cabinet - these can be sold at one-fifth the present prices, and they can then flood the market. Actually it is lot better to buy speakers made between 2014-2019 which you can get at nice price and the quality would be wonderful.. sometimes 2014 one would be better than 2019

Thank you for reporting. Was considering this speakers. And its not the defect itself, its the handling of the case.

Thanks for sharing. Good to know. No Harberth for me.

Ouch! I can imagine your upset. Harbeths are overpriced for North America. However, they have an overwhelming amount of satisfied customers and are undoubtibly a great value in the Uk and provide great speakers generally. I think you are doing a good thing by holding Harbeth to a high standard for everyone, especially for the future of their products, which will be made to an even higher standard because of your courage and unselfishness!

I will stick with my Lintons... Greetings from Ireland

Thanks for the info. I was thinking of harbeth. Time to unthink.

Demo a 30.2 today and love the sound but after seeing this video and the comments, no way would I buy one. That’s just sloppy work that’s tolerated by the company, and it’s totally unacceptable.

How does it sound? Does it sound good?

I'm afraid the hi-fi world is populated by snake oil merchants. The late great Len Gregory (AKA The Cartridge Man) railed against the received wisdom of so-called 'audiophiles' and the purveyors of such nonsense in general. We need more people like him.

Not sure why you didn't insist your dealer take them back, inspect another pair and then give those to you? Let your dealer deal with Harbeth. That's what you pay for. I bought a rosewood pair of P3ESR's and the varnish over the wood had a some white marks and actual finger prints in the varnish. Yes, poor quality control to say the least. It was disappointing. My dealer exchanged them for a cherry pair and those were flawless. The dealer makes the difference. Harbeth does have poor quality control in my opinion.

OMG those cabinets. The price. You kidding. Anyway, harbeth speakers are like their British cars. Overhyped, and overpriced.

Have Harbeth has ever reply to this video?

I can’t imagine how disappointing and frustrating this would have been. Clearly they have internal issues with manufacturing and quality. To suggest that the product is good enough because the sound is not affected is shocking. Just removed 40.3 from a potential purchase. And as a diy speaker builder, I agree these speakers are vastly overpriced. The box construction is basic and crossover components not what one would expect at this price level.

unfortunately, it looks like the made in china >>>> made in uk time has come. I always told myself: for electronics - Japan or Germany for speakers - UK or USA ot Germany to me UK fell out of this

they sound great tho..

I own two pairs of Harbeth speakers purchased 5 or 6 years ago, SHL5+ and M30.1, and both pairs have cosmetic defects as others reported. The SHL5+ have little drops of lacquer on the top and the frame slightly bended in one of them. The M30.1 have a repaired little piece of wood in a corner and they smell a little like glue or whatever after several years. But at least the price I paid was a half that it is today and they sound great.

I have a pair of 14 year old Harbeth SHL5's which have been kept in a UV free and low humidity room. The veneer started to split on the sides and top. i strongly believe the defects were already there when it was brand new cause i remember when i ran my palm across the surface then, i could feel the undulations. It sucks for such an expensive item and you'd think they can get something as simple as the veneering right. Other than that it works perfectly. Yes there are stains and scratches on the drive unit but since Alan Shaw discourages owners from removing the grille, it is a problem solved.

The price for the speakers is insane for sure

Seriously

I’m in line to running the company 😅sorry.

Sorry about your experience - never a good feeling when you spent your hard earned income on something less than stellar. We live in interesting times indeed. I would add that it is more remarkable when we find a company who does provide excellent customer service and address concerns - as that is as rare as hens teeth. I can name several American brands with months of backlog and could give a crap about your frustration (let alone taking it to TH-cam). C19 for some reason has given the service industry a permanent pass *excuse* on the "Service" part of their role. Unfortunately many of these companies see success as an opportunity to be smug and indifferent. Changing lanes for a moment; I do think we need to take a breath on expecting flawless QC from everyone or everything - or send it to China if we don't. As a car lover, what would have happened to Lotus and Jaguar (before Ford and Tata) if they simply outsourced their car manufacturing? In the end, Harbeth will either exist or cease to exist if they lose too many customers, after all, voting with our purchasing power is the only avenue we have left open to us consumers. 👐 On another note, if you know you are getting something assembled and built by hand, you better be prepared to see human error and flaws - they are impossible to eliminate without removing the human altogether, I have experience in a custom manufacturing plant.

There is little doubt that social media has increased demand for Harbeths - possibly as much as tenfold; it seems they just can’t keep up. I would never accept the “doesn’t affect the sound’ excuse; its a kick in the face from a company who add great premium for their aesthetic. I was pretty much sold on Harbeths as my next upgrade from my ATCs, but not now - even knowing the internals could be shabby is a big turn-off. Thanks for your efforts; it means a lot.

thing is as well as the speaker drivers are meant to be matched pairs based on their frequency response readings so them sending a random driver immediately meanse you have a sub optimal product. Poor show on harbeth. At those prices they should be much more better at dealing with customers warranty issues.

I never buy a new car for 6k to 8k price marking with scratch’s or dent. Its lot of money we have put into hifi gear. So pls all the hi end companies should be careful. Such as Harbeth brand this is not expected.

Thank you for sharing your experience. Often reviews would be paid by companies and hence you never get the truth. It’s a shame that companies like Harbeth have little to no respect for their customers.

Have owned three pairs of Harbeth's years ago (P3ESR, SHL5, SHL5 Plus 40th) and heard most other models. My SHL5 Plus 40th had an overly thick coat of badly applied lacquer, with white blemishes in the finish. Sold them off quickly afterwards with a loss. The reason quality of cables and amps (must be beefy though as Harbeths are insensitive) do not make much of a difference on Harbeth speakers - they always sound uniformly 'pretty' and good, though often lacking in real details and micro dynamics; like a pretty picture of the music being played - may well be because of the complex crossover composed of dirt cheap capacitors, resistors and iron core inductors, leveling and sucking out micro detail while making them hard to drive. Their 'audiophile' polypropylene caps are still quite cheap. All the while Shaw suggests everyone else is an idiot unless they agree on his antiquated BBC-school of complex crossover design, while insisting on ' adequate power' and ignoring quality in all other aspects of the signal chain. Ah well :-) They still sound quite pretty (and slightly dull - can't fix that).

Thank you for your posting. You pay so much for Harbeth made in UK and such poor QC. Meanwhile many highend speakers such as Wharfrdale made in China QC is better. Not acceptible.

I understand greatly your frustration my friend. In general I have noticed a great decline in customer service by dealers, distributors & most surprisingly by the manufacturers themselves. I have been into audio since the late 70's & the degradation is so clearly evident but maybe it's just a sign of our times. Quite specifically, I've owned the Harbeth 7's, 5's & P3's & have noticed the issues you have spoken about. I like the box design but as you say, nothing special. The truths you're just buying branding at this point & of coarse a lot of fanboy support. This is something all the people that support censorship & politically correct speech when they even kick you off of a forum for stating your experience, I guess they consider this misinformation or hate speech. I'm in the market for a pair of small 2 way monitors & the Fritz Audio speakers have really peeked my interest. Hopefully you will consider selling them & giving your money to a company that truly values their customers, good luck to you.

I bought second hand, kef C60 from the80ies, and the pro version P60...with eton polyprop. Cone after 40 years still mint...amazing sound...170euro for the c60 and 300 euro for the P60 with K300 amp ,which is a quad pro amp, this system costed new in the '80ies 3000 euro..!!! It delivers undistorted dynamics over 113db ...so grand piano sounds like real....and closed box gives tremendous bass impuls , i feel no need to put my 18" jbl pro 4345 ...but keep it for variation...no sysyem have it 'all'....but all speakers together i didn't spend 2500 euro...for the price of a pair of small minimonitors , i have a collection of top speakers and electronics...just have to replace ferrofluids after 40 years , and foams fron jbl pro....andcaps passif filters

I had experiences on the Harbeth User Group with Shaw that were exactly like Craig's below. What put me over the edge was when, after listening to Shaw blow-harding about how speaker cables couldn't possibly make any audible differences, Harbeth came out with Monitor 30's and P3's using "Special OFC internal wiring". Hmmm...I've since moved on to Graham Audio LS 5/8 speakers and have not looked back.

This stuff is very frustrating. I feel for you. I did just watch a Harbeth “documentary”, and apparently these drivers are literally assembled by hand. So on the one hand (no pun intended) you have people touching all the parts and using glue, etc. to create the driver. But on the other hand you have people touching, and hopefully with great care and respect hand-assembling every single unit, and thus would hope there was some level of QC on every single unit. I mean hand-assembly should mean something, and I would expect better just like you. On the other hand, sometimes it’s maybe better not to inspect. Still, it is unforgivable that they give you a second unit with glue marks AND a separating surround. I have an issue with my Naim streamer, in actual performance not appearance, but it still feels similar. Naim units are also apparently hand-assembled by elves in England, like Harbeth speakers, thus very high-priced. Problem with them is they don’t respond to emails. Their user groups, as are most, are filled with apologists. It’s like people worship the brands. It’s disgusting. I was getting interested in Harbeth. Maybe not, now 🤷🏻‍♂️.

I just inspected my Harbeth HL C7ES-3's bought new in 2020 they are in perfect condition, beautiful!, as for Mr Shaw and arrogance I can believe that, seen a few videos, kind of makes me regret buying Harbeth for that reason

Sir, go for KEF, you won't go wrong again.

I have Velodyne Ld2 27 years old. Good as new.

I have similar issue in P3ESR XD, which have a dirty wood debris stick on in tweater ribbon when first inspection during unbox