Rogers LS3/5a (BBC) Speaker Review

[3125b]

No...it's not. The manufacturer gets the smallest margin. The distribution is expensive and eats most of the money.

Not if they are sold in small quantities, directly to consumer is easier than it ever was. Hell, you managed to get your speakers, which are significantly more expensive to produce, to retailers at 4000€ in Germany which includes MwSt., huge non-wage labour costs and big margins for the retailer. If whoever makes these distributes them directly to consumers, their margins would be huge. Sachmängelhaftung isn't a thing in the US, and in general there's a lot less regulation to deal with. Plus there's not much that could go wrong with passive speakers to begin with.
If these cost a reasonable amount (if they are indeed made in fairly small quantities in a first world country), say 1500$/pair, I bet they would sell less of them.

December '23 issue, Winning!

Not one product that's bad at anything, remarkable. These publications are a joke ...

 

[Somafunk]

I may find it difficult to be impartial here, but it might be useful to put the cards on the table first. I worked in the BBC for 35 years as a sound mixer, sound editor etc. A large part of my life was in Outside Broadcasts trucks (small vans really - Commer FC Van ) using the supplied 3/5a as my daily speaker.

Did you ever work with Neil Espley?, he joined the BBC in early 70's and worked as sound engineer/producer for R1, R2, R3, R4 and ended up sound engineer for R3, a mate but he now lives in Cyprus.

I used to love just whiling away the hours with a whisky and listening to his tales of the BBC and the thousands of artists he got to work with, some of the tales are definitely not suitable for repeating. He was very good mates with the founders of PMC and had a custom made pair of MB2 (think that was the model?), absolutely thunderous sound from them.

 

[uwotm8]

Said speaker will result in a 'neutral' in room sound. It will not measure flat in room at the listening position because in room it is made up of both the direct and indirect sound(room reflections) You can see how this will and should yield an in room

How does this contradict what I said?

Beside of that, I honestly don't get why measuring these caused all that storm - they kinda do what's claimed, 80-16000 or so within +-3 dB. Doing in specific way which some people like and others dont. Current price is a cause of all from inflation to becoming a niche thing. And so on.

I don't believe anyone seriously buys these for current price as main speakers. It's an artifact or a toy for those who can afford it.

 

[Karl-Heinz Fink]

Back in the day (like '70's - 80's) the going dealer cut was a gross margin of 40%, i.e. on an item with a retail price of $100, the dealer would pay $60 wholesale. So in other terms, the markup over wholesale would be $40/$60 = 2/3. You don't have to mention any specifics, but as an economist I'm curious about whether this has changed over the years.

Hi Dennis,
nowadays, it's more and on top comes the international distributor margin as well, who sells it to the local dealer.

 

[Sonny1]

Send it to Danny, he'll remove the cheesy crossover, whack in some tube connectors, a bit of no rez and make it 100% worse.

Hilarious!!!

 

[Spkrdctr]

That’s a whole lot of “Oh snap” for $5k large. Vintage value for a collector aside. The cheap looking connectors on the back scream White Van Special.

Oh, you mean these are not white van specials?

 

[ROOSKIE]

How does this contradict what I said?

Beside of that, I honestly don't get why measuring these caused all that storm - they kinda do what's claimed, 80-16000 or so within +-3 dB. Doing in specific way which some people like and others dont. Current price is a cause of all from inflation to becoming a niche thing. And so on.

I don't believe anyone seriously buys these for current price as main speakers. It's an artifact or a toy for those who can afford it.

I quoted your post though I wasn't focused on contradicting what you said. I did find what you had said confusing.
Basically I was aiming to clarify somethings.
Maybe for you, maybe not. Really because lots of people read these threads, way more than comment. So if someone is coming here to figure it out I think a lot of people get really confused by terms like 'neutral' and 'flat' and different in room measurements... really the whole measurement scheme in general.

You aren't exactly asking me this but my take is I suppose the new storm here is caused by additional exposure to the reality that in the heights and the depths of the hobby&profession there is almost no correlation to price. There is almost no price--->performance ratio. A pair of Monoprice speakers for $300 may be far superior in many ways to these. Now there are other factors and I do want folks to make money. Not everything ought to be a mega factory made black box. There are some really great speakers that do cost a lot of money. That said in my view these are simply not worth much more than a fraction of what they cost viewed 'objectively' and so a buyer should at least know that and then decide to drop $4+k on a heritage toy that doesn't work good.

 

[Spkrdctr]

I quoted your post though I wasn't focused on contradicting what you said. I did find what you had said confusing.
Basically I was aiming to clarify somethings.
Maybe for you, maybe not. Really because lots of people read these threads, way more than comment. So if someone is coming here to figure it out I think a lot of people get really confused by terms like 'neutral' and 'flat' and different in room measurements... really the whole measurement scheme in general.

You aren't exactly asking me this but my take is I suppose the new storm here is caused by additional exposure to the reality that in the heights and the depths of the hobby&profession there is almost no correlation to price. There is almost no price--->performance ratio. A pair of Monoprice speakers for $300 may be far superior in many ways to these. Now there are other factors and I do want folks to make money. Not everything ought to be a mega factory made black box. There are some really great speakers that do cost a lot of money. That said in my view these are simply not worth much more than a fraction of what they cost viewed 'objectively' and so a buyer should at least know that and then decide to drop $4+k on a heritage toy that doesn't work good.

View attachment 328564

So to sum it up, you are saying that the buyer should know ahead of time he is buying junk? I agree. Amir keeps finding high priced junk almost every day. Without Amir the audiopile (audiophool?) community would be lost.

 

[Waxx]

The Rogers (nor the other commercial variants) is not the same as the BBC design. I heared both original BBC builds and a pair of Rogers from the 1980's side by side and the difference in bass is quiet big. But they were never hifi speakers, never ment to be. They were designed to be used in BBC trucks for remote tv and radioshows and were ment to replicate voice very well in a very small space, not music.

The original had the original Kef B110-A6362 woofer, the later versions, made by Rogers had the Kef B110 SP1003 woofer, wich is a very different driver (that they still use), the orignal cone was made of a rudimentary version of polypropylene, the second version of doped bextrene.

The original tweeter was a Kef T27 (A6340) which was a rebranded Seas H086, Rogers (and later BBC Models) used the KEF derrivation of that H086 tweeter but with a mylar dome in stead of the original coated fabric of the H086 that they called the T27 SP1032. Funny enough, Seas later called the variations of that H086 the T27 tweeter, after the Kef models that they OEM build... That H086 (1") tweeter and it's bigger (1.4") variation, the H087 are still one of my favorite tweeters ever and were used in dozens of speakers of that era, including the famous, Dynaco A25, many B&O speakers of that time and the Goodman Mezzo SL

BBC used the original models of drivers that were OEM build, altough KEF had discontinued them for general use and called the monitor the BBC LS3/5 (without the A). Rogers, Harbeth and Falcon commercialised those speakers as the LS3/5A with the newer Kef drivers, and some of them were used at the BBC in the later 70's and early 1980's also.

Btw, i got this info from a former BBC Engineer who helped design the original (as young starting engineer), that later moved to Belgium to work in the infamous Philips speaker factory in Dendermonde. He is the man that learned me most about loudspeakers and their design.

 

[Tangband]

The Rogers (nor the other commercial variants) is not the same as the BBC design. I heared both original BBC builds and a pair of Rogers from the 1980's and the difference in bass is quiet big. But they were never hifi speakers, never ment to be. They were designed to be used in BBC trucks for remote tv and radioshows and were ment to replicate voice very well in a very small space, not music.

The original had the original Kef B110-A6362 woofer, the later versions, made by Rogers had the Kef B110 SP1003 woofer, wich is a very different driver (that they still use), the orignal cone was made of a rudimentary version of polypropylene, the second version of doped bextrene.

The original tweeter was a Kef T27 (A6340) which was a rebranded Seas H086, Rogers (and later BBC Models) used the KEF derrivation of that H086 tweeter but with a mylar dome in stead of the original coated fabric of the H086 that they called the T27 SP1032. Funny enough, Seas later called the variations of that H086 the T27 tweeter, after the Kef models that they OEM build... That H086 (1") tweeter and it's bigger (1.4") variation, the H087 are still one of my favorite tweeters ever and were used in dozens of speakers of that era, including the famous, Dynaco A25, many B&O speakers of that time and the Goodman Mezzo SL

BBC used the original models of drivers that were OEM build, altough KEF had discontinued them for general use and called the monitor the BBC LS3/5 (without the A). Rogers, Harbeth and Falcon commercialised those speakers as the LS3/5A with the newer Kef drivers, and some of them were used at the BBC in the later 70's and early 1980's also.

Btw, i got this info from a former BBC Engineer who helped design the original (as young starting engineer), that later moved to Belgium to work in the infamous Philips speaker factory in Dendermonde. He is the man that learned me most about loudspeakers and their design.

Looking at the measurements, they have a peak at 1,3 kHz and another at 5 kHz . Looks a bit like chn110. This is two good frequencies to have a slightly higher level compensating for the stereosystem faults. This loudspeaker sounded very 3D and ”out of the box ” and almost magical fluid with a Luxman amplifier and a Thorens turntable during -85 when I first heard them. They were ( ofcourse) correctly placed against a backwall as they should . At that time, it was the best small speaker I had heard, together with Boston A40.

The lack of baffle step compensation can be seen in the measurements - this area between 200-800 Hz will be flat if the speaker is placed against a wall as it is constructed for.

 

[DilbertPugh]

To get an historical idea--from 1978. Also attaching Arny Nudell's (Infinity Systems) reply about his QLS speaker, that references the LS3/5A.
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View attachment 328556
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Don't know how many people would have bothered reading this fascinating document but I found it a great read and very pertinent to all the historical information others have shared about the BBC .... but then I've always been a sucker for the serendipity of newspapers one finds under carpets or lining cupboard draws!

 

[uwotm8]

A pair of Monoprice speakers for $300 may be far superior in many ways to these.

Or may be not. For some reasons people love LS 3/5 and their "tailored" tune while "properly engineered" monoprices and emotivas come and go.
This is all subjective and "fightting with snake oil brands" is cute and laughable at the same time.

Without Amir the audiopile (audiophool?) community would be lost

Really. These are just a good speakers of their era, judging them as a potential $4k buy is not the smartest way. They are not. It's an historical artifact.
Or maybe it's just me who never believed that these "can" deliver anything except a brief in audio history.

 

[MAB]

No need to criticise the BBC engineers of the 1960s, but whoever there thought it was OK to grant a licence and endorse selling copies of this speaker for audiophile use today should be rewarded with a big glass windowed executive corner office at the new office building in Salford.

.., and made to listen to Mahler sympathies on a pair of them for four hours a day until they stop it.

Well stated.
This is the equivalent to a scalpel, that seems to have been confused with a carving or butter knife, by audiophiles.

 

[restorer-john]

Looking back at my decisions for speaker choices from that era, I'd have been Muuuuccch better off with a pair of these, instead of being fully taken in the the "DCM Time Window" narritive, with all the "phase coherent" and "transient perfect xover and driver alignment" stuff -- man, what regretful (HiFi) decisions I made in the 80s -- regarding speaker choices, that is!

Man, not just the original Time Windows, but I also bought a pair of their "QEDs" which were a bit better that the TWs...But still, embarassing to say the least!

By today's high competency standards (KEF, ELAC, Revel, et al) man, the DCMs were awful (especially the Phillips woofers and tweeters) -- can't wait to see the backlash on this opinion about DCM...

You won't get any backlash from me. I've owned 3 pairs over the years, original TWs and 1as. The later 1as with the Vifa D19 tweeter were somewhat better than the horror-show that was the original Philips based (hex woofer) and nasty poly tweeter.

The TW 1as could sound quite amazing if the stars aligned and the placement/room/ and music worked, but that was rare. Mostly they sounded 'interesting' and a bit of a talking point for people, and if you weren't careful, an irresistibly attractive scratching pole for your cat.

I sold my last pair of TW 1as when my Birman cat looked at them a little too closely and I knew she'd make a meal of them at the first opportunity. Packed them in a cupboard for a while to keep them safe. LOL.

 

[Thomas_A]

With respect to being near-field and linear when placed against the wall, the BBC speaker has a very odd roll-off below 1 kHz. Another small speaker I know of that is intended as a portable monitor placed against wall has a more gradual drop as would been expected when using wall support. Link: https://www.faktiskt.io/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=73409

 

[MattHooper]

That said, even among those who appreciate neutral speakers, there are those who also express a preference for the LS3/5a sound knowing that it’s not as neutral.

I am curious why that is. Does our brain fill in the vocal region with our preferences more? Is it all sighted bias? At least we now have the first full spin on a Klippel NFS.

The Spendor S3/5 SE had been measured by Stereophile

https://www.stereophile.com/content/spendor-s35se-loudspeaker-measurements

and measure smoother than most "original" variants (but all have no real deep bass) which variate also quite:

I've seen those measurements though mine are the early "regular" version so I'm not sure if they measure exactly the same. However those "SE" version measurements seem to track fairly well what I hear from my S3/5s.

As to what some audiophiles see in these speakers: Speaking only of the version I own....and I tend to listen to them pulled well out in to the room, and about 6 or so feet away from me, the first thing is that I always find the surprisingly satisfying and large sounding for their size. Every time. That canny boost does help out, and on my speakers I find them to have a beautifully balanced sound. I don't notice any "look at me" frequencies and it seems to make mixes feel..well.."balanced."
They are just amazing in terms of disappearing and imaging, a real magic show. Yet the important thing for me is that they do not produce to my ears a lightweight "see through" airy-fairy presentation; what's there has a sort of density and texture. Like you could cut synth pads with a knife, or vocalists have a sense of density and body, even if they are not as ultra vividly detailed as on more modern speakers. They seem "soft" at just the right places to flatter the human voice, and so I find them among the most "human" sounding speaker I've heard, and hold up very well when I close my eyes and compare the sound of well recorded vocals through the Spendors vs real voices in my home. (I have to add: helped even more in those respects when they are being powered by my CJ tube amps).

And then they have just a bit of forward in the highs which doesn't sharpen the sound, but seems to add a nice shimmer and sparkle for instruments that benefit from that - e.g. the harmonics of an acoustic guitar picking, drum cymbals. So if I'm playing a track with a female vocal with accompanyment, the singer will sound right "there" fleshed out, soft, organic without the sibilance being emphasized or artificial, and yet cymbals, floating synth bits, guitar parts, will pop with a nice bit of sparkle and vividness. It makes for a sort of luxurious sonic quality, to my ears.

Though I actually like playing any music through the Spendor S3/5s, including rock and major symphonic music, after a couple of weeks...yeah I do get a little weary of the bass bump leaving it's signature, and yes I do start to crave the full range sound I'm used to. So out they go. Wonderful place to visit, though, as they do things none of my other speakers do.


I've never heard the original LS3/5a, and it seems they measure more wonky. However when it comes to these "what in the world does any audiophile see in this? Aren't they just being duped?"...I wonder if it sometimes comes down to what one person is looking for vs another. I can imagine an ASR member listening to the Spendors and noting some frequency deviations, lack of bass etc and just writing them off, because that person isn't paying attention to, or as interested in, certain characteristics of sound that I may be interested in and appreciate in the design. And perhaps something similar is happening with the original LS3/5as: that some audiophiles ARE using them, in their own set up, in the way that hits their particular buttons.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Hi Dennis,
nowadays, it's more and on top comes the international distributor margin as well, who sells it to the local dealer.

Thanks. I guess it's no dealers for me.

 

[rynberg]

Not sure if anyone mentioned in the previous 10 pages of comments (likely), but if the upper bass/lower midrange alignment is authentic to the original, I'm guessing they voiced the speaker assuming it would actually be put on a bookshelf against the wall. Still, poor engineering and a ludicrous price.

 

[Waxx]

I fully agree that the prices asked for these today are ridiculous. They are also very easy to clone and make better with modern tech, even for their original purpose. The best variation i heared are the Harbeth's from the 90's. And these were also overpriced in my opinion. They are a historical speaker, where design clues (like the broken bell mass damped thin wall cabinet) can work for modern designs, but the orignal design, and certainly the modern variation of it, are just overpriced now and running on hype arround the BBC name.

Btw, now the BBC mainly use Dynaudio and Genelec monitors, not those old designs or any in house design anymore.

 

[Yevhen]

It was optimised to work in Outside Broadcast trucks which were relatively small (often wall mounted on brackets) and acoustically dead. They could be driven down dodgy roads and across grassland etc. In that context, the LS3/5A worked well.

There were absolutely no tube amplifiers involved. As others have said, the Quad 303 was used (as explained by @Willem . But the majority were driven by a small mono-block power amplifier known as an H|H am8/12 (AM8/12 is a BBC designation, like LS3/5A). There's a thread about them here: S.O.S on the AM8/12 I wonder how they measure!

I couldn't find the exact damping factor of Quad 303, however many mention that it was very low. Probably, it was still better than the tube amp...