...Pete is right, the Salk 'sound' is very true to the music. Harbeth's just seem to be 'musical' to me. Bad recordings are more listenable. With Salk, the better the recording the better it sounds, but a bad recording sounds like it was recorded...bad!...
John
Personally, I've found that, with the Salks, this is a good thing. For instance: A poor recording with a little of its own distortion sounds very poor through a speaker adding it's own coloration and distortion.
With the Salks a recording, like Iggy Pop's Raw Power or The Idiot, sound more involving to me. You hear the original distortions in the recording; the distortions are now free from the speakers distortion. Now these albums are much more musical. To me anyway.
That make sense? It's something I noticed when I started playing bad recording on the Salks.