Brand: HARBETH - UK

Toward the end of his illustrious career at the BBC’s Research Department, HD Harwood discovered a new thin-film plastic that seemed suitable for speaker cones. With the BBC’s approval, he was granted a patent, and after his official retirement, Harbeth was founded, and Harwood returned to the business of loudspeaker manufacturing. Advertisements in the hi-fi press announced his 1977 debut of the HL Monitor (Mk1), built around his newly patented, world-first polypropylene cone mid-woofer. Compared to the best hand-doped, first-generation Bextrene plastic cones in early BBC monitors, it played louder, handled more power, was more sensitive, and had tighter bass with less coloration.