The Super HL5 traces its roots to Harbeth's founding in 1977 by Dudley Harwood, a senior BBC audio research engineer whose team pioneered polypropylene loudspeaker cones — technology that outperformed the Bextrene cones common at the time and became the foundation of the company's sound.
The HL5 itself has been continuously developed and refined since then, evolving through several driver and crossover generations under longtime owner-designer Alan Shaw. It sits at the top of Harbeth's "domestic" range (as distinct from the professional "M" series), sharing the roughly two-cubic-foot cabinet proportions that define classic BBC monitor design, and remains closely related in concept to the Spendor BC1, another product of the same BBC engineering lineage.
Design & Engineering
The Super HL5 is a vented 3-way design built around Harbeth's in-house RADIAL polymeric composite bass/mid driver, paired with a 25mm ferrofluid-cooled aluminum dome tweeter and a 20mm titanium (later aluminum) dome supertweeter with a neodymium magnet and waveguide face: the "Super" in the name refers to this added supertweeter over the standard HL5.
The cabinet follows the BBC tradition of thin-wall, removable-panel construction, heavily damped internally with dense acoustic foam lining and stuffing, while the front baffle is left undamped around a foam-lined reflex port. All speakers are handmade at Harbeth's factory in Lindfield, West Sussex.
Technical Specifications
Frequency response: 40Hz–24kHz ±3dB (free space, 1m, grille on). Sensitivity: 86dB (1W/1m). Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Recommended amplifier power: 25–150W. Power handling: 150W program. Connections: four 4mm gold-plated binding posts (biwireable). Dimensions: 638 x 322 x 300mm (H x W x D). Weight: 16.8kg each.