I've been having a great time auditionng the HT3. Last night I spent about four hours with them listening to various types of music, and at the conclusion, I had no sense of listening fatigue. That says a lot about my overall evaluation of the HT3's. When I can listen for hours, it means I must be enjoying it, which means I must think they are pretty good.
The HT3 does nothing to offend, and lots to impress. It's a very smooth soundng speaker with clean highs and shockingly deep bass for a speaker that is essentially a floor standing monitor. When you consider its depth and width, it takes up less space than a small monitor on stands. But it plays so much larger than a monitor. It didn't have unlimited bottom end or dynamic range, but it played plenty loud for me, and I never felt short changed in those areas.
The bass is tight and articulate, but in my room I got the best results with the side firing woofers facing each other. Man, those small bass drivers are impressive!
I like to listen to my speakers nearfield with speakers the 6-7' from my head and 5' apart.
The advantages are that you get more of the direct signal with less interference from sidewall reflections. You also don't need to turn the volume up as high, which means less distortion. But to listen this way the drivers must work extremely well together to achieve a coherent sound. That's how I listen to my ProAc's, and the HT3's were ideal in this setup. If you haven't done near field listening, you should really give it a shot with the
HT3.
Here's a picture from just behind where my head would be when sitting down.
The photo is kind of dark. I was unsuccesfully trying to depict how I listen in a darkend room, but I had to adjust the contrast of the photo so the speakers could be seen better.
In reality, the front of the room is darker than the back of the room, leaving the speakers in almost complete darkness. The HT3's are about 5' apart and 5' from my head. In my room there is about 10' of open space behind the speakers, and when sitting like this in the near field the speakers are pretty much out of direct line of sight, which helps to make them seem to disappear when listening. You get all this wonderful sound in front of you, with a great sense of depth, and the physical presence of the speakers pretty much out of the equation.
My evaluation is based on how they compared to my ProAc Response 2.5 floorstanders.
Here's a picture of each side by side:
You can see that they are similar in stature. The ProAc's are 42” tall and the HT3's are 40”, but the ProAc's are on a base with spikes, which raises them about 2”. The HT3 tweeter is a ribbon, which sounds very different from the ProAc. Which one is better is a matter of preference, I guess. Both have excellent high frequency extension, and both are clean and clear, but they do not sound the same. The midrange driver, of course contributes to the sonic character of the HT3. The ProAc does not have a separate midrange driver. In the bass region, both are very similar and both are excellent. Overall, I'd give the nod to the ProAc. The HT3 had a slight tendency to resonate in the bass in my room. The biggest difference was in the midrange, where the ProAc excels, and the most noticeable outcome is in vocals. With the HT3, vocalists sound less chesty.
The HT3 was excellent at reproducing guitar and other strings, and brass instruments. I really enjoyed listening to Otmar Liebert and his acoustic guitar – very articulate and convincing.
And the HT3 excelled at symphonic music, which is how I ended up doing practically all of my listening once I was done with the evaluation process. I just decided to stop working and start enjoying. One of the recordings I listened to was the Best of Rachmaninoff on Telarc. Track #12, Finale from his Piano Concerto #3 in D Minor, performed by Lang Lang was electrifying, and Track #9, Adante from Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was inspirational.
Overall, I was very impressed with the HT3, and believe it is an excellent value. I was comparing to my $4500 ProAc, after all.
Some notes:
For such a small floorstander, they can play very loudly.
They are very smooth and non fatiguing.
They do seem to require lots of power. At the same volume setting as my ProAc, they played much quieter.
The wrap around maple veneer is very attractive, but the seam at the back is not, well seamless.
Excellent bass
The cabinets are very solid and feel very well braced. I challengd the HT3 with a track from the Burmester Test CD 3, track #10 of the Chinese Drums. The bass rattled my walls but not the speakers – very impressive.
If this seems like a speaker that might interest you, I strongly encourage you to get on the audition list on the RAW forum.
