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Stirling Broadcast LS3/5a V3 Review.

amber liquid poetry cannot be off topuc!

Agreed. I'm at The Plough, Nottingham. It's next door to the Nottingham Brewery which Whitbread closed in the 1950s. They've revived several of the old brews from back then. Hmm...bit like Falcon!
 
I’m out for a beer this evening, at The Plough in Finstock.

My friend is a semi-prof. audio engineer, who laughs a lot about Hi-Fi buffs.
( I’d better not get him started this evening...)

The other man in our triplet runs an electrical repair shop, with his Nephew selling
the audio kit.
‘The other man’ is also rather cynical about modern audio enthusiasts and their never-ending
search for Audio Nirvana.

As for me, I just waffle on about old loudspeakers.
 
...

Having said that, I'm listening to a speaker from Falcon that's essentially had no innovation for 45 years!


I have had the pleasure of listening to music from as disparate musicians as Micheal Jackson and Edwin Fischer on a pair of Falcon BBC speakers over the last few days, and was genuinely surprised that conventional coned speakers can actually be superb. ALL pervious experience of multi-driver coned speakers led me to the inevitable conclusion that more than one conventional cone driver in a speaker box simple could not integrate in all circumstances.

Of course I come from the angle of being an ESL [57] user so my hope for real integration is very high.

Would I swap my [mono voiced and used in mono] ESL for a stereo pair of Falcons? Probably not. Not least because I cannot afford to switch, and secondly because I am not an enthusiast for stereo.

But for timbre and integrity, they score the best marks yet in my experience of conventional speakers.

Only tuppence' worth from George
 
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I have had the pleasure of listening to music from as disparate musicians as Micheal Jackson and Edwin Fischer on a pair of Falcon BBC speakers over the last few days, and was genuinely surprised that conventional conditions speakers can actually be superb. ALL pervious experience of multi-driver coned speakers led me to the inevitable conclusion that more than one conventional cone driver in a speaker box simple could not integrate in all circumstances.

Of course I come from the angle of being an ESL [57] user so my hope for real integration is very high.

Would I swap my [mono voiced and used in mono] ESL for a stereo pair of Falcons? Probably not. Not least because I cannot afford to switch, and secondly because I am not an enthusiast for stereo.

But for timbre and integrity, they score the best marks yet in my experience of conventional speakers.

Only tuppence' worth from George

I can relate to your experience in that I have never been able to go beyond a 2 way speaker for quite similar reasons
 
Talking of a single Quad ESL, one of the engineers/part-time salesman at Horns of Oxford won a single ESL in
a Quad competition.
Phil Tandy ( lovely man ) was his name and I well remember his demonstration of a complete Thorens/SME3009/V15/Quad/ESL system.

It sounded wonderful!

Anyway, back to the story.
Phil loved his ESL, but when stereo became popular he has to buy another.
I feel sure Geoffrey Horn gave him a discount.
Peter Walker knew Geoffrey Horn very well.

I understand some test work was carried out on a Quad tuner in Oxford.
Something to do with the fact the FM transmitter was relatively close by and overload measurements
were carried out upstairs at Horns.

All this was a nice distraction from my work at the Chemistry Dept. in Oxford.
Happy Days...

With apologies to Henry Winkler.
 
Forgive me if this is stupid, but isn’t the ESL 57, which I guess is the model under discussion, a three way speaker, with separate sections for reproducing bass, midrange and treble?
 
Forgive me if this is stupid, but isn’t the ESL 57, which I guess is the model under discussion, a three way speaker, with separate sections for reproducing bass, midrange and treble?

Is the ESL a multi-driver speaker? The answer is of course, yes. But as the difference between a conventional cone bass unit and a normal tweeter is about the mass of the moving parts and their natural resonant frequencies, the normal issue is of trying to integrate two [or more] quite dissimilar drive units. "Force equals Mass times Acceleration" means that bass drivers react more sluggishly than tweeters due to the much greater mass of the moving parts.

The moving parts of the treble panel and the [two] bass panels in the ESL are made of mylar which is only a few microns thick and the mass of the whole of the moving mylar in an ESL is less than that of a single tweeter's moving parts. Indeed the issue of integration of the different panels in the ESL was completely solved, because really the problem never existed in the first place.

Interestingly the cross-over for dividing the frequencies between the panels is simply a few resisters that then rely on the different capacitance of the bass and treble panels to complete the slope filter. An ingenious solution that is also durable, lacking conventional capacitors, which always go off in time.

Best wishes from George
 
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I have now mounted my Stirling V3s on a pair of Falcon LS3/5a stands and can report that the results are outstanding! Not sure what others are using but I have tried a few types of stands with my mini monitors before and find these the best so far. Great price currently from Falcon Acoustics directly.
 
I have now mounted my Stirling V3s on a pair of Falcon LS3/5a stands and can report that the results are outstanding! Not sure what others are using but I have tried a few types of stands with my mini monitors before and find these the best so far. Great price currently from Falcon Acoustics directly.

My Falcon's are on their dedicated stands. I have nothing to compare them too but they do sound great - aesthetically they work well too. They are also cheaper then the Soldsteel stands I think.

Finally, the service from Falcon when I ordered them was fantastic.
 
My Falcon's are on their dedicated stands. I have nothing to compare them too but they do sound great - aesthetically they work well too. They are also cheaper then the Soldsteel stands I think.

Finally, the service from Falcon when I ordered them was fantastic.

yes, the Falcon stands are about £800 but at the moment they have a batch way cheaper due to something to do with their powdering, I believe, but they are absolutely perfect and this is what the guys at Falcon reassured me, great service indeed.
 
Hello,
very interesting thread,
I have been a fan of BBC Ls3 / 5a monitors since more than 30 years ago, I first heard a copy, Rogers, then I had the opportunity to listen to some others, spendor, harbeth
I have had a Harbeth Ls3 / 5a couple for more than 25, I have been very happy with her, in a room of 2.90 * 4.50 meters, later my son enjoyed it, and I sporadically, I also own a Stirling Ls3 / 5aV2 couple , which in my opinion supposes some advance in some concrete areas, dynamics and capacity of spl, fundamentally, preserving the timbre richness of the BBC school, for me it was an improvement, and in this case it fills a room of 4.50 * 5.50 meters,
also recently I have acquired a pair of Celef Ls8, which far from being a "classic" BBC, supposes the "particular" interpretation of its designer, (S.Tyler) of what for him is, or should be, the "modern sound" "and" current "of the mythical speaker of the BBC (whom he knows and admires since his appearance)
The three of them, despite their particular and distinct character and "sound" nature, live together in my home and alternate in harmony and I enjoy each one of them.
Regards
Oso
p.d. intrigue me and I would like to be able to listen to some V3, and to be able to compare them with mine
 
Good to hear you enjoy all three pairs for their own particular strengths.
Very different to those ( unhappy ? ) people on Internet LS3/5a discussion groups, who can’t make
their minds up about the latest Falcon model, Rogers model, Graham model, etc.
 
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compar10.jpg
 
By the way an extraordinary combination, for "Philosophy", Planning, Execution, and search for the Holy Grail of musicality
 


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