Founding Director
Harley’s role in Pearl Acoustics today is largely advisory, stepping in as required. He likes to focus his time between recording classical music and creating content for the Pearl Acoustics YouTube channel. In addition, he enjoys making road trips in his 1966 MG and (of course) listening to lots and lots of music! He is an Ambassador of the Belgian National Orchestra and sponsor of a number of music foundations.
Born into an artistic family in SE London in the late 1950’s, Harley’s mother was an abstract painter and his father an Architect. From his mother he got his love of jazz and folk and literature, and from his father everything classical. Classical music has been his first and foremost companion all his life with; rock, blues, R&B, Reggae, and every genre with soul becoming welcome diversions along the way.
In his younger years he played the viola and piano, then later the guitar. He studied classical guitar and composition in the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music, and the history of music and music theory at Morley College in London. It was always his desire to become a conductor of a symphony orchestra but life set him on a different course, a journey into the world of international business and management. He is the author of four management books: ‘Making a Difference’, ‘Inspirational Leadership’, ‘Transition’, and ‘The Change Managers’ Handbook’. And yet, all the while, HiFi (and in particular loudspeaker building) was always there, investing time in refining the mechanics by which captured electrical signals are finally converted into sound.
In 2010, with the establishment of a not-for-profit organisation supporting outstandingly gifted, young, classical musicians, Harley threw himself headfirst into the world of making classical recordings. His aim, to deliver results that were extremely accurate and lifelike, recordings that could technically stand alongside some of the best classical recordings of all time. As Harley often quotes “Life is a progression towards Mozart”.
“For me speaker building is more like instrument making. It’s a passion and a craft all at once. Sure there is science too but not many Luthiers know much about science, they don’t need to test their cellos, violins or classical guitars in anechoic chambers to know if they are any good or not. All I have done over these last five decades is to try to design and build the best possible enclosures and then to find really great drivers (ones that can cover the widest possible frequency range effortlessly). By teaming up with Mark Fenlon of Mark Audio, I now have my own custom drive units made exclusively for all our loudspeakers“.
My Top 10 Desert Island Records
– #1 Sibelius, Symphony No. 5, in E Flat, Opus 82
– #2 Beethoven, String Quartet in A Minor, Opus 130
– #3 Beethoven, 9th. Symphony in D minor, Opus 125
– #4 Mozart Piano Concerto No. 16 D Major, K451
– #5 Bob Dylan, ‘At Budokan’
– #6 Bob Dylan, Time Out Of Mind
– #7 Jackson Browne, For Everyman
– #8 Joni Mitchel, Travelogue
– #9 Miles Davis, A Kind of Blue
– #10 Rory Gallagher, Live in Europe
