Rogers LS3/5a (BBC) Speaker Review

[Galliardist]

I always wonder why KEF doesn't make a "historical" remake of this.
It could be good money (even for nostalgia reasons) for them and they surely know how as the original woofer manufacturer.

They could even collaborate with Focal in a truly historical "reunion" .

That would be a terrible waste of time when if KEF wanted to do a small historical speaker they could revive the old Reference 101 instead. KEF didn't make LS3/5As until the final years of the first wave and then were probably only reducing their inventory of T27s before leaving the driver market. The Reference 101 was a better speaker (despite Colloms dumping on it for having a flatter response) and it, along with other KEF speakers that used the same drivers, is the reason why they didn't make LS3/5As themselves a lot earlier.

The Reference 101 needed a powerful amp, but that's not a problem any more, is it?

 

[Willem]

Well, now is the time to explain how measurements of that exact 40 y.o. Rogers 3/5 sample gives anyone the idea of, say, new Harbeth version of "same model" sound.

Quite. None of these old ones would still meet the original specifications. Anyone who is curious about the original performance should look at the contemporary lab measurements linked to above. A comparison with the modern Harbeth P3ESR shows that we have come a long way.

 

[calugg]

I've come to the conclusion that speakers are like cars. Vintage gear can make your heart twinge a bit, but seriously, does ANYONE want to drive a 1987 Plymouth Horizon? (my grad school death-mobile). The engineering, generally, for both cars and speakers, is vastly superior today. TODAY we are living in the golden age of audio. There are so many options to listen to music the mind can be completely overwhelmed.

 

[Willem]

this would have been built to a price in the 1960s by the BBC so they can slap them into TV Licence Vans (I dunno, I'm not British)

The BBC never built them (other than engineering samples), but offered a production and marketing license to speaker manufacturers like Roger, Chartwell and others. I am not sure what you mean by TV license vans, but these were designed for vans equipped for outside recording (i.e. mobile recording studies for news broadcasts etc).

 

[Blumlein 88]

I've come to the conclusion that speakers are like cars. Vintage gear can make your heart twinge a bit, but seriously, does ANYONE want to drive a 1987 Plymouth Horizon? (my grad school death-mobile). The engineering, generally, for both cars and speakers, is vastly superior today. TODAY we are living in the golden age of audio. There are so many options to listen to music the mind can be completely overwhelmed.

I'm sorry. No one wanted to drive a Plymouth Horizon back then either. All in good fun mate.

Me, I drove an Oldsmobile 221 in high school. Something like the 442 they made. Only two barrel carb, two speed transmission and single exhaust. It did have 4 doors so there is that.

 

[GXAlan]

Well, now is the time to explain how measurements of that exact 40 y.o. Rogers 3/5 sample gives anyone the idea of, say, new Harbeth version of "same model" sound.

The Harbeths need to be tested since no one expects the 1970 JBL L100 to sound like today’s L100 Classic. No one is comparing that.

That said, the true BBC LS3/5a being made today* to the same standards as before are the Falcon Silver Badge:

Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

You can see that the measurements are not substantially different from this unit and if anything, this unit measures slightly better!

*Falcon upgraded the crossovers recently to make the Gold badge which replicates the crossover of the original prototypes not the original commercially available LS3/5a.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

I'm sorry. No one wanted to drive a Plymouth Horizon back then either. All in good fun mate.

Me, I drove an Oldsmobile 221 in high school. Something like the 442 they made. Only two barrel carb, two speed transmission and single exhaust. It did have 4 doors so there is that.

Oh. I love myself a good car analogy. We should take bets, when a thread brings up cars, or watches or …. . Just kidding.

 

[NoMoFoNo]

Ugh. Nostalgia verging into lunacy at $5,000 per pair. For the current buyer of these, I've got a pack of Camels, a six pack of Old Dutch and a Ford Fairlane on offer for big money.

 

[poxymoron]

Face palm emoji

 

[Deleted member 21219]

Well, mister refined palette,

... palate ...

Jim

 

[fpitas]

View attachment 328491

Face palm emoji

There are always a few.

 

[poxymoron]

They really are just marketing the vintage vibe, with all of their emphasis on the enclosure and how it looks. You need to scroll down a bit to find out anything technical about the speaker.

 

[fpitas]

They really are just marketing the vintage vibe, with all of their emphasis on the enclosure and how it looks. You need to scroll down a bit to find out anything technical about the speaker.

View attachment 328493

Faux Vintage sells to a certain demographic. If you like that sort of thing it's a lot easier than restoring real vintage speakers.

 

[poxymoron]

Faux Vintage sells to a certain demographic. If you like that sort of thing it's a lot easier than restoring real vintage speakers.

I get it and the market is there. Audiophiles who coveted the originals back in the day and now have the funds to make this kind of purchase. I love the vintage vibe myself but it's all about how they perform for me.

 

[LTig]

Just seeing the title of thread let me know there is a lot of fun to expect.

As others have said the LS3/5 was designed for a specific listener/speaker position and a specific task, and I think it did deliver back then. Using it in a typical home situation is just wrong.

I was puzzled about the deep hole (-5 dB) between 200 Hz and 1 kHz. The impedance curve peaks (32 Ohm) between 300 Hz and 1.2 kHz. If you drive them with a typical audiophool amp with high output impedance the hole will be partially flattened. This together with room gain this may be an explanation for some of the hype.

In 1988 I made a similar sized speaker using Kef B110A and Audax HD25 based on the then famous Klinger Lautsprecherbaubuch. It was not a LS3/5 clone buit suffered from similar problems. Despite needing tons of power there was no bass and rather recessed highs (however I was used to bright sounding Heco 3-ways). So I built the next one based on the KEF CS7 kit using a B139B, B110B and the Audax HD25, and teaked the crossover for the tweeter to my taste. I liked them and people who came liked them as well. Once my girl friend thought there was a real person in the room singing, but it was Suzanne Vega with Tom's Diner.

However 3 years later I listened to Magnepan 1.6 and was sold to their much better representation of the mids. I sold the CS7 to a friend and used the LS3/5 non-clone as my desktop speakers. They were hanging on the wall. I left them there after I got the Genelec 8020a in 2006. One person listened to the great sond of the 8020a and congratulated me for building such good speakers. She couldn't believe that the tiny 8020s were playing and not the bigger ones hanging on the wall behind them. Finally just a few years ago I sold them to someone who wanted to have the B110As. Before he took them we listened to them in my big room and I have to admit while the sound was not really good it also was not really bad, which IMV is a good thing as many speakers with faults do sound offensive.

 

[ROOSKIE]

That said, both the Focal Vestia and JBL L52 Classic were jarring to my ears whereas these did not sound transparent and I knew I was listening to a recording but was happy to finish a song or album. The Vestia and L52 were in home trials where I took a big hit on shipping costs.

“They're not that great. I liked them more than the Focal Vestia (treble too low) and JBL L52 Classic (treble too hot) but it's not transparent by today's metrics and that's a very jarring first impression to overcome.

Have not heard the Vestia but fell just short of really enjoying the three recent Focal speakers I have used(706&806&906)

FWIIW, I found the L52 to be a fantastic speaker. Stunning midrange and excellent power handling.
You have mentioned the L52 as having hot treble but there is an L-pad connected to adjust it to taste so it really doesn't have a particular tone there.
Strange it didn't work. In my measurements it's control is very smooth and linear.
I use it to take about 1.2-1.5db(measured)off by 10k.
I also found better, smoother in room sound with the tweets on the outside vs inside.

The reason I bring this up is that I wish more speakers had L-pads in the design. It is so nice.

You could always adjust treble and overall tone with tone controls or PEQ. You didn't want to or something else?

You can see how much the published eqs by both @amirm and @Maiky76 's suggested eqs can affect the speaker or any speaker.

For those that LIKE the LS3/5a sound, I wonder what a modern speaker would sound like if you put in that dip?

You could easily try doing this. Just dial in the appropriate eq/PEQ.

 

[fpitas]

I wish more speakers had L-pads in the design

I understand that, but in time almost all L-Pads become problematic. Some better speakers have a rotary switch which cuts and boosts incrementally, like 0.5dB.

 

[dfuller]

Y'know, considering that ATC is the kind of thing that replaced these speakers... I think there's some pretty serious improvement in off-axis response here.

 

[Yevhen]

Maybe it was optimeTaking into account the impedance curve, the amplitude response of the speaker/amp lineup

the old BBC had the problems we see here

Maybe it was optimized to work together with the tube amplifier? Taking into account the impedance curve, the amplitude response of the speaker/amp lineup would be more linear. So the losses in the tube amp transformer might help to smoothen that 1.1kH peak (Impedance has a dip at 1.1kHz) and slightly boost the 500-900Hz region (high impedance)

 

[GXAlan]

Have not heard the Vestia but fell just short of really enjoying the three recent Focal speakers I have used(706&806&906)

I liked the Focal Utopia and Electra Be from years ago and picked up the Vestia because I wanted a white speaker with white fabric grilles that was small based upon the very good performance of the older Cobalt line. Somehow the Vestia didn't jump on me.

FWIIW, I found the L52 to be a fantastic speaker. Stunning midrange and excellent power handling.
You have mentioned the L52 as having hot treble but there is an L-pad connected to adjust it to taste so it really doesn't have a particular tone there.

I got a killer deal on the L52 as well at a time when shipping was pretty pricey to return the unit. But I couldn't adjust it to get the right balance. When I brought the highest frequencies down, it brought down the moderate-high frequencies down too low.

it always lost to the JBL XPL90 in A/B comparisons. I do have several classic JBLs and had the JBL 4319 with the L-pads at the time as well.

I also found better, smoother in room sound with the tweets on the outside vs inside.

That's a good point. I didn't think to play with the tweeter localization -- maybe that would have made a difference.

The reason I bring this up is that I wish more speakers had L-pads in the design. It is so nice.
You could always adjust treble and overall tone with tone controls or PEQ. You didn't want to or something else?

+1 on L-pads, especially if they have detents to allow you to return them to neutral.

For that particular room, I was using the speakers with a digital piano (as well as with recorded music). For recorded music, you can do whatever you want. But for use with the digital piano, latency is a real issue. It's pretty incredible how much of piano playing relies on the auditory feedback of the note. Bringing in PEQ adds too much latency. Even the ADC/DAC of the Monolith HTP-1 with all other processing bypassed introduces too much latency.

You could easily try doing this. Just dial in the appropriate eq/PEQ.

The tricky part is that I don't like the LS3/5a sound. Maybe it's because I grew up in the West Coast and so if there's a non-neutral sound I like, it's classic JBL. So I imagine if I eq my Meyer Sound Amie's to the LS3/5a, I'll just end up with sound that I don't like. I would be curious to know if someone who loves the LS3/5A sound gets the same "magic" when they EQ their speakers with this droop in the vocal region.