The KEFs made the individual 'strands' of the music clearer and therefore more engaging for me.

I think the Celestions had the best sound for long listening sessions. At the same time it did not seem to lack any details.

The Celestions and Kef have better separation of instruments, better bass extension than Harbeths. The Celestions sounds warmer and mellower than Kef. To me Celestion > Kef>> Harbeth.

My vote goes to Celestion SL6s - From your demo clip, Celestion displayed a fuller body of sound. I used to owned a pair of Celestion SL-600si with the original stands. 10 feet apart, I placed the speakers at 1the 1/3 of hall length position forming a triangular formation to the audition chair with 2/3 of the hall length at the rear of the speakers to breath. Powered with a Luxman M4000 amp, the result was amazing - Speakers start to disappear with impressive dynamic impact when I played the TELARC recording of the above Gustav Host track. They could also reproduced the Japan big drums convincingly but there was indeed volume limit for deep low frequency for laws of physics. SL600si has a better box enclosure compared to SL6s though. However, the first condition for Celestion to perform is that you must play them reasonably loud. Soft low level background listening will not give you the inner details of musical passage. Secondly, they would need amp of high power (or high current to be exact). The complex crossover will yield wild swing in impedance and thus demands a good amp to handle. I have ever used big power amps from Yamaha, Accuphase, Onkyo, Nakamichi, Adcom, Krell and vintage tube amp Mcintosh MC240. The one that I like most is the Onkyo M-5090 power which gave me breathtaking big sound in dynamic and great sound stage. However, Celestion would lush me when they were coupled with my MC 240 coming to vocal or jazz playing. Among the smaller power amps, Robertson 4010 power amps are exceptional - I used a pair Robertson 4010 in a bi-amp configuration driven by Audio Research SP15 Pre, Teac P2 Transport / Theta Gen V DAC which have left me with great memory of good sound. Alongside my SL-600si, i had also Kef LS3/5A and ProAc Tablette at the same time . As such, you could imagine how busy I was then swapping them in and out - I was still single then in my younger days 🙂

Love comparison videos!

Harbath sounded smooth and rounded harmonicly rich from top to bottom, more 3D. Celestion sounded a little brighter on top but still warm on the bottom. KEF sounded even brighter from top to bottom and lacking depth.

Thanks for this refreshing comparison by a musician. The Harbeths have it for me, on the grounds of extreme musicality, so I'd save up for the XD version which has, I believe, an extensively revised crossover vs. the 40th. Anniversary model.

I have had a pair of Celestion SL6s’s for 25 years. They were $2,000 back in the day and seemed like a bargain for their ability to create a live, sound stage.with lots of air and a decent bottom end.

I own a pair of Celestion SL600 Si and love them. Paid a £100 including stands LOL ... best £100 ever spent

Celestion to my ears sounds best👍👍

I want the Quad ESL

I have two pairs of the Kef reference 101's. Remove the paint from the tweeter dome. Also replace the filter behind the tweeter dome with a small amount of mineral wool. This speeds up the top end. Finally bypass the "S" stop system as it is frequency robbing. This came from Kef when the shop my father worked at and later did I. We were a Kef dealer when these were new. I miss the old days of audio, good times. Way better than the new "Bose like" design and sound.

Nice job. I would liked to hear the Holst on these three.

To me, the Harbeths sound congested and are lacking in space for the instruments to present well, but they do have a nice warm sound. The Celestions image better, yet keep some of that warmth. The KEF leans toward bright a bit too much for my taste.

I had Harbeth P3ESRs and never thought I'd change them. Then I happened to get a pair of Celestion SL700s and within 5 minutes the Harbeths were heading for ebay! Curiously the other pair of speakers in this room are Kef LS50s, the new Meta incarnation,

I already own a pair of Harbeth 30.2s, but to my seventy year old ears, the KEFs are preferable. Thank you for the comparisons.

As I used to work for Celestion I’m going to say the SL6si win 🥇 However as a massive fan of Harbeth I’ll give them a massive thumbs up 👍 too. Have you ever tried SL600si or SL700SE? I absolutely love my SL600si

I like the Celestions - but speakers of this vintage would definitely need to be re-capped to hear how they are meant to sound.

SL6 has better SQ compared with the other 2. Dark and bigger sound stage.

It’s a damning indictment of folks like me who aren’t multi-lingual that you should have to do an English channel at all. However I am absolutely thrilled. Thank you. The Celestions were the winners here, in my opinion. Kefs a very distant third. I expected the Harbeths to win but I thought they were just bested by the SL6Si.

I go for celestion

Thanks for that........all good...........for me the Celestions took it. Track down a good pair for £300 ish

The first was pleasant, but for me, uninspiring. Compared to the last one they seemed somewhat muffled. The third was more forward and bold...but for my ears just slightly more than necessary. The Celestion's were close to perfect. They seemed just slightly bashful compared to the Kef's but all in all were the most musical. Almost perfectly natural. I could listen to them all day. In fact I do, so maybe I am biased. Mine are not that same model but the sound is very recognizable, and I love it.

Which song is this? I couldn't find the section in the whole victory at sea album.

the Harbeth's are the winners for me, the midrange is so sweet and the soundstage was wider fuller and deeper, the Celestion's were a little too forward sounding to me with a much narrower soundstage, a little brittle and shouty, the Kef's were much better than the Celestion, but the Harbeth's won buy 10 miles, my humble opinion, oh and I have owned many Quad ESL 57's over the years and still have 2 sets, no speaker does the tonality and breath of the human voice like the 57's

Celestion

i wonder if the cartridge is made of wood too (like the head-shell)

I liked the Celestions

The P3ESR did the melody the best. Celestion, while may be less distorting, wasn’t melodious. KEF sounded tonally wrong to me.

The speakers went from worst to best. Nice.

Any link to the spanish version?

the last is the most revealing 3- and then not sure 2-1 or 1-2 (1 should be Harbeth) listened with horn speakers and used to listen music on low gar all my life so I like cheap sound- impossible to judge by KZfaq

What speakers cables do you use ?

My opinion is I can't hear any difference because I am listening on my laptop with its internal speakers, and even with headphones how the hell am I supposed hear what is in your room live? These kind of KZfaq comparisons may work best if it is microphone or cartridge test

Celestion is near natural. KEF to bright. Harbeth too subdued

Looks like a klipsch la scala in the center

Celestions for me.

This is background music. Meaning, do other stuff while the music plays on. Study, write, work or put the kids to bed. In which case, for me, the kef and Celestions get in the way, the Harbeths does it best- disappear.

I prefer the celestion! Still the funeral music

Difficult for me to judge, not familiar with that record....love kef c60, and P60, and ref 102....bought second hand....speakers new today too expensif....

Celestine much more open

Hi, great job. Love the comparison sound samples... even with different price points, it is super helpful to give the user an impression on the sound qualities. Please have a comparison battle w/ the Aperion Grand Verus III bookshelf against these (since you recently reviewed the Aperions). Thanks for this english version channel, really helps.

To my ears the Celestion was the best of this sorry lot. It had the clearest sound and the best treble. But the cello was weak on all of them. No bass -> no music.

Sl6 is good

i think they all 3 similar

1. KEF 2. Celestion 3. Harbeth

Celstions are a bit edgy and brash with a more boxy sound. The Harbeths are the most refined and less bright but probably more accurate. The older Celestion SL6 S is a more refined and probably sounds more like the Harbeth.

I have listened to the P3ESR against Celestion SL6si on more accurate electronics and I preferred the Harbeth as I prefer natural sound but when compared to the SL600, the Harbeth lost. The Kef was the worst of the lot.

The Harbeth are crap, as most of the rest of the highly touted BBC spawns. They were ok 100y ago when they were designed, they have that romantic sonic signature, mostly 2nd harmonic, that impressed Stereophile/TAS sometimes in the 80s? They were voiced to sound ok with harsh Japanese or Linn/NAD receivers at the time. All these speakers are WAY past their prime, they can't play past 85dB due to nasty tweeter intermodulation distortion. Of course using modern drivers, better xover components and shallow wave guides would improve the situation but god forbid R&D money should be spent on these cash cows.

I like better from Q100 they have better instrument seperation as well