This is a review and detailed measurements of the SoundArtist clone of BBC LS3/5A 2-way speaker/monitor. It is on kind loan from a member. Sample is in Walnut and he paid $630 for it:
Fit and finish is quite good with no blemishes that I could see. Nice modern terminals are provided in the back:
I got a kick out of that "CE" mark. What exactly did they test?
For those of you who are not familiar with the "LS3/5A" these were monitor speakers designed by BBC in 1960s. Their reputation has spun multiple companies to keep producing them. Some are licensed. This Chinese version is not.
SoundArist LS3/5A Speaker Measurement
As usual we start with our anechoic frequency response measurements:
Wow! I don't think I have ever seen such a messy frequency response in 260 speakers I have tested! Not only is it bad, it barely resemble any published response for LS3/5A. Here is the measurements of my review of Rogers LS 3/5A:
I guess response up to 1 kHz is kind of close but then goes off the rails after that. The bit that is close is the wrong anyway. Let's motor through early window and predicted in-room response as they are not remotely pretty:
Near-field response shows what is wrong:
That is no way to cross a woofer with a tweeter. They are sticking to the 3 kHz crossover frequency but woofer's response is all wrong by that point.
Impedance and phase response show that this is not at all copying the original design:
Minimum impedance of just 1.7 ohm??? Roger's response was some 9 ohm at the same spot. Not only is that wrong, it will be very tough load for amplifiers.
Distortion is much higher than Rogers LS3/5A although in the same region that that speaker was weak (woofer playing too high):
Here is the Rogers version:
Here are the absolute distortion measurements but please, as noted, don't rely on them as frequency response is so variable:
Paradoxically, horizontal directivity is better than Rogers LS3/5A (which was pretty bad):
Vertical response is twisted in knots so best to stay at tweeter axis:
Finally, here are the waterfall and step response:
Edit: here is the listening tests and EQ:
Sound Artist LS 3/5A Speaker Listening Tests and Equalization
Owner wanted to see if I could salvage the speaker by developing an EQ for it. I connected it to the recently reviewed AIYIMA A07 Max amplifier. Initial impression was a muffled sound followed by incredibly boomy sound if there was any bass in the music. My room has a mode near where the big hump is in this speaker making it doubly bad. So out came a few filters:
This was fair bit of work. Getting rid of boominess would result in brightness at times. So I hand tuned the 2 to 4 kHz filters. That helped some but brightness would come and go. As would boominess. I tried to fix the latter with little luck (you can see my erased filter at the bottom). Room modes interact with the speaker so just using speaker frequency response is not enough.
Then remembered the load dependency of AIYIMA amp so switched to my Mark Levinson Reference amplifier. Real or not, I thought that relieved some of the brightness. But after a minute or two, I hear the sound cut out with static! Jumped from my seat and shut the amp down even though it had recovered. I connected the speaker back to Fosi and all was well. Not sure if the amp was unhappy with the very low impedance of the speaker, or the amp is failing on its own. Whatever the cause, it did not make for a happy situation!
I think one of the barriers in equalizing this speaker is its distortion in the lower treble. We need to boost that area making matters worse, creating harmonic distortion that can make things sound bright.
Anyway, with the above EQ in place, turning it off made the music sound like it was under a thick blanket. In about 10% of the time though, the extra bass without EQ provided a better sound than all of my filters combined. Even with EQ, it is not a speaker I want to use and listen to.
Conclusions
Boy, this whole LS3/5A game is messy. Without measurements as a target, companies seemingly produce any and all responses. Original BBC document shows a flat response but it is not clear if actual speakers were such. Certainly the Rogers LS3/5A was not. Lack of publicized measurements results in people buying stories instead of a proper design in the form of SoundArtist LS3/5A. In addition to poor frequency response, distortion is also quite bad. The only thing "good" here is the packaging/look of the enclosure.
I can't recommend the SoundArtist LS3/5A. Please spend your money on a proper speaker.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Fit and finish is quite good with no blemishes that I could see. Nice modern terminals are provided in the back:
I got a kick out of that "CE" mark. What exactly did they test?
For those of you who are not familiar with the "LS3/5A" these were monitor speakers designed by BBC in 1960s. Their reputation has spun multiple companies to keep producing them. Some are licensed. This Chinese version is not.
SoundArist LS3/5A Speaker Measurement
As usual we start with our anechoic frequency response measurements:
Wow! I don't think I have ever seen such a messy frequency response in 260 speakers I have tested! Not only is it bad, it barely resemble any published response for LS3/5A. Here is the measurements of my review of Rogers LS 3/5A:
I guess response up to 1 kHz is kind of close but then goes off the rails after that. The bit that is close is the wrong anyway. Let's motor through early window and predicted in-room response as they are not remotely pretty:
Near-field response shows what is wrong:
That is no way to cross a woofer with a tweeter. They are sticking to the 3 kHz crossover frequency but woofer's response is all wrong by that point.
Impedance and phase response show that this is not at all copying the original design:
Minimum impedance of just 1.7 ohm??? Roger's response was some 9 ohm at the same spot. Not only is that wrong, it will be very tough load for amplifiers.
Distortion is much higher than Rogers LS3/5A although in the same region that that speaker was weak (woofer playing too high):
Here is the Rogers version:
Here are the absolute distortion measurements but please, as noted, don't rely on them as frequency response is so variable:
Paradoxically, horizontal directivity is better than Rogers LS3/5A (which was pretty bad):
Vertical response is twisted in knots so best to stay at tweeter axis:
Finally, here are the waterfall and step response:
Edit: here is the listening tests and EQ:
Sound Artist LS 3/5A Speaker Listening Tests and Equalization
Owner wanted to see if I could salvage the speaker by developing an EQ for it. I connected it to the recently reviewed AIYIMA A07 Max amplifier. Initial impression was a muffled sound followed by incredibly boomy sound if there was any bass in the music. My room has a mode near where the big hump is in this speaker making it doubly bad. So out came a few filters:
This was fair bit of work. Getting rid of boominess would result in brightness at times. So I hand tuned the 2 to 4 kHz filters. That helped some but brightness would come and go. As would boominess. I tried to fix the latter with little luck (you can see my erased filter at the bottom). Room modes interact with the speaker so just using speaker frequency response is not enough.
Then remembered the load dependency of AIYIMA amp so switched to my Mark Levinson Reference amplifier. Real or not, I thought that relieved some of the brightness. But after a minute or two, I hear the sound cut out with static! Jumped from my seat and shut the amp down even though it had recovered. I connected the speaker back to Fosi and all was well. Not sure if the amp was unhappy with the very low impedance of the speaker, or the amp is failing on its own. Whatever the cause, it did not make for a happy situation!
I think one of the barriers in equalizing this speaker is its distortion in the lower treble. We need to boost that area making matters worse, creating harmonic distortion that can make things sound bright.
Anyway, with the above EQ in place, turning it off made the music sound like it was under a thick blanket. In about 10% of the time though, the extra bass without EQ provided a better sound than all of my filters combined. Even with EQ, it is not a speaker I want to use and listen to.
Conclusions
Boy, this whole LS3/5A game is messy. Without measurements as a target, companies seemingly produce any and all responses. Original BBC document shows a flat response but it is not clear if actual speakers were such. Certainly the Rogers LS3/5A was not. Lack of publicized measurements results in people buying stories instead of a proper design in the form of SoundArtist LS3/5A. In addition to poor frequency response, distortion is also quite bad. The only thing "good" here is the packaging/look of the enclosure.
I can't recommend the SoundArtist LS3/5A. Please spend your money on a proper speaker.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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