2024 Golden Ear: Harbeth Monitor M40.3 XD Loudspeaker

$18,999/pair

The latest version of Harbeth’s flagship, the Monitor 40.3 XD, benefits from the designer Alan Shaw’s “eX-tended Definition” upgrades. These consist of mostly in substantial improvements in cone material—bass and midrange drivers are now made from  RADIAL 2,  the company’s  proprietary compound known for its lightness, rigidity, and extremely low coloration—and crossovers, which further refine the integration of all three drivers for improved coherence and transparency. Yielding one of the smoothest, most linear in-room responses I’ve ever measured with Omni-Mic, the 40.3 XD is capable of reproducing a symphony orchestra top to bottom with truthful tonal balance that never sacrifices vividness, vitality, involvement, color, body, texture, resolution, and palpable presence, not to mention that Harbeth drop-dead gorgeous midrange. It will also reproduce virtually any other kind of music with comparable fidelity while eliminating the speaker itself as a source of listening fatigue. Power handling, medium efficiency, and a benign impedance curve are such that it will play cleanly, with great authority, at very loud levels in all but mansion-sized rooms. Unless you require the bottom half-octave (where there is little actual musical content) at full volume, the bass has sufficient reach and slam down into the upper thirties as to obviate the need for a subwoofer on most acoustic music. Solid stands that place the tweeters at ear level are mandatory, while the dedicated  Ton Träger  stands allow the speaker to perform at its absolute best. This 40.3XD version displaces the 40.2 Anniversary as my reference and is now all around the best large three-way speaker in my considerable experience of the genre. (342)