Musical Technology Harrier

Hi all,

Do any of you know much about the Harrier speakers?
I once had a little problem with one of them. The base came loose.
Not a good sign, but I mention this as it allowed me to take a look inside. This is what has intruigued me: all the cabling, including crossover to drive unit, are bare single-core wire and they all touch. How does this work? Could I improve this by separating/shielding them?

I can't find much at all on the web regarding these speakers, let alone the company that made them. Any help would be appreciated.

If anyone has any interest in this I could try to fish out some pictures I took at the time (I have since glued the base back).

Thanks
Stel

 

Italian, late 90's, rare.

If they are built like my Alfa, they will look good and be a great money pit!

There is a thread on Pink Fish that could be useful http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=65730

 

The single core wire is most likely enamel coated.

 

Tenson is spot on, the wires are all enamelled single core copper inside the MT speakers. They were a local firm based in Chesham and it's a great shame they're gone, PMC bought the brand but as far as I'm aware never really did anything with it.

 

Oh. Not Italian then. Never mind, the Alfa comments still stand. You have been warned, Money pit....

 

Last I heard they were near Bridgend South Wales
IIRC Clive Gibson was the main man, a real gent & very knowledgeable.

Like most smaller manuf's they didn't have the budget to buy in the reviews & were often overlooked.

 

Good point, I think you're right, something's coming into the fuzz that is supposed to be my memory that they moved away as they started to grow.

As for running costs, well there shouldn't really be any if the speakers are looked after. They don't have foam suspension on the drive units, so should last many, many years. I only recall replacing a couple of drivers out of the many sets we sold, one set were heavily overdriven with a clipping amp and another had a physical impact with the metal cone of the bass driver which creased it.

 

Peter what were the most popular MT sets you sold?

 

I'm afraid my memory isn't great but we mainly sold the smallest floorstander (the Kestrel I think) and the Harrier. We only did one or maybe two pairs of the much larger model (I think it was called the Falcon), which were an awful lot of speaker for the money but they really dominated a room as they were tall and pretty wide (it didn't help that the shop pair were in black which did nothing to shrink them!).

 

Happy New Year.

Thank you all for your responses. Sorry it has taken me so long to reply. I have had a coule of weeks of tough decision making: is Fuller's London Porter better than Greenwich brewery's London Meantime? That kind of thing.

As for the speakers, yes, I heard they were based in Wales but that was all I knew. I've also recently found a few comments on what a nice fellow Clive Gibson is.

Techie things: Would putting some kind of sleeving on the wires improve on the enamel coating or would it be more effort than it's worth? Also, I also wonder if the tweeters could be improved by removing the three-legged plastic protection grill(?) that sits between them and the listener. Can it be there for anything other than to protect the tweeter?
A while after I'd bought these a SE upgrade became available. Is there any way I could find te parts for this? I understand there were different bass/mid drivers and a different wadding to pack them out with.

Any idea of the current value of these speakers?

Thanks again
Stel

 

i found removing the grilles did not improve the performance
they were a clever design which allowed them to perform fitted

sleeving would not be an improvement imo unless you have shorting - these were designed & specifically chosen for their job

 

I agree completely about leaving the wires unsleeved, this coated copper wire can sound great, especially considering its very low price.

For upgrades you might look at replacing the internal wiring completely with something a bit more specialised (I rate the Atlas Hyper cables for internal wiring, but use whatever you have chosen for your external connections). Experimenting with better parts in the crossover is well worth doing (caps especially) and if you're not worried about resale consider removing the crossovers from the cabinets and housing them externally really cleans the sound up and improves dynamics (as well as making cap changes much quicker and easier!).

I can't recall the type of wadding they used, however my preference is for anything using a reasonable percentage of sheeps wool as it sounds nicer to me than the 100% synthetic variants (it's more expensive so few manufacturers use it). Assuming it has the most common polyester wadding then an upgrade here can help with in the mid range/upper bass, just be aware you might have to change the quantities slightly and make a note of whereabouts it is positioned before removing it.

 

I used to work as an acoustics engineer (transducer designer) with clive gibson for a few years, so know the speaker range quite well.
they are very underated. and can sound exceptional.
especially the kestrel, which as long as your listening room isn't large can sound spectacular with good partnering equiptment.
I would recommend upgrading them as close as possible to SE spec, which involved film capacitors instead of the electrolytics in the crossover, there was also a change to the tweeter to a model with a lower resonance, these tweeters are not avaliable anymore, but can be rebuilt to this spec and beyond (up to the level found in the hawk) this is farily complex though it involves complete dissasembly of the tweeter and some machining of the pole plate (tricky as it's still magnetised!)
i've got a pair of hawks and eagles the eagles are truly stunning.
the internal cable works very well and you'd struggle to better it as the electrical parameters of it were factored into the crossover design.
in some of the more upmarket models the cabinets were lined to make then heavy and more damped, a very good alternative to the compound used would be flexible floor screed, lay the cabinet down and pour in lining the walls one at a time with a ~5mm thick layer.