Falcon LS3/5A crossovers Silver vs. Gold

[Tony L]

Ok, so after much, much pondering and the temptation of a slight discount, this happened:

Then this:

And finally this:

This final step was a total PITA as the brown and white wires from the binding posts are exactly that long, in fact that’s pretty much strung like a bass guitar tension wise, that is all the space you get to work with. No where near enough to lay the baffle flat. It’s actually even tighter than the old crossover as the wire positioning is different, the input wires being central on the new crossover rather than offset to one side (see first pic). I’m amazed I managed it neatly without hitting anything else with the iron (though I did slightly hit my hand).

How do they sound? Not the slightest clue as I’m waiting for a big book from Amazon to land so can’t fire the upstairs system up. I know they work as I tested them briefly on the TV rig. I’ll probably hold fire commenting for a while to give them a chance to bed in. It’s done anyway, Gold Badge in everything but gold badge on the back. I figured I may as well as these are keepers. No matter what other speakers come and go having a pair of LS3/5As knocking around is never a bad thing.

 

[Graham H]

Ok, so after much, much pondering and the temptation of a slight discount, this happened:

Interested how you get on.

How did you manage to obtain a discount? From Falcon?

EDIT - just seen the 10% discount offered by Falcon.

 

[Tony L]

Yes, just the 10% off on site, I never ask for favours!

 

[ToTo Man]

Too late now but given the difficulty installing the new XOs I'd have been inclined to change it out on one speaker to start with and do an A/B shootout between the two in mono!

 

[Tony L]

First impressions from a couple of tracks from Donald Fagen’s Morph The Cat suggests pretty much what everyone else says. More dynamic, less warm, tighter and gripper. They actually close the presentation gap to the JR149s a fair way. I’m not hearing any increased sibilance or edge that some report, but I am using very good amps kitted out with very good valves (Leak TL12 Plus).

Bill Evans Complete Village Vanguard on now and same feelings. More dynamic, more alive, tighter and less (upper bass) warm, but no less weight. More forward and present. I think this aligns with the majority of reviews.

Obviously I’ll keep updating as I learn, and I do always expect new kit to relax a bit, but I’m not hearing anything I don’t like yet.

Very expensive, and probably not great financial sense as it means I now have best part of £1900 invested in a pair I’ve taken a soldering iron to and with the wrong coloured badges on the back when a new factory pair is about £2.5k. I could probably have got here for less cash by selling the Silvers and buying a second hand pair of Golds, but these are mint, the colour I wanted (walnut) and I do have a pair of crossovers to sell which have to be worth £100-150 or so! As they are a speaker I can’t ever imagine selling I don’t think that’s too bad really.

 

[Tony L]

Too late now but given the difficulty installing the new XOs I'd have been inclined to change it out on one speaker to start with and do an A/B shootout between the two in mono!

I was kind of tempted to, even seeing if REW spotted anything (I doubt it would as I think this is dynamic, not tonal). To be honest once I figured that soldering the input leads from the binding posts was going to be such an utter ball-ache I just plowed on as I wasn’t sure I was even going to be able to do it, and if I needed longer leads wanted to order them from Falcon today. I’m pretty certain if they were 5mm shorter I’d have failed!

 

[Zombie]

Enjoy the placebo effect as long as it lasts! Don't understand why you didn't just solder 5 cm extension of similar cables...problem solved.

 

[Tony L]

Enjoy the placebo effect as long as it lasts! Don't understand why you didn't just solder 5 cm extension of similar cables...problem solved.

I am totally obsessive about detail on this type of thing. The only alternative would be to get Falcon to send me some longer lengths of the correct cable to redo the run to the posts, I’d be triggered by anything else. It is what it is!

This is why I’m good at this sort of stuff, so I don’t view it as an issue. You’ll never find anything I’ve worked on to be botched or half-done, it is always as good as anyone could do it. I just don’t accept less!

PS One thing that didn’t occur to me to check is how the wire is attached to the binding posts, it was out of sight behind some foam. If by any chance it is just soldered to eyelets and bolted down it would likely be easier to undo the posts, remove the wires and solder it to the crossover outside, and then reassemble everything. That way it would still be fiddly as there is so little room, but at least there would be no risk of hitting anything with the iron. It’s done now, and done very neatly, so they aren’t coming apart again! @Martyn Miles would likely know.

 

[Martyn Miles]

Thank you for dropping my name...
I could well be interested in the crossovers you have for sale.

 

[Graham H]

I see from your third photo the red cable to B110 is soldered to -ve tag, and black cable to +ve tag. I’m sure this must be correct - but if Falcon are manufacturing the B110s specifically for the LS3/5a I wonder why they label them this way?

 

[Tony L]

I see from your third photo the red cable to B110 is soldered to -ve tag, and black cable to +ve tag. I’m sure this must be correct - but if Falcon are manufacturing the B110s specifically for the LS3/5a I wonder why they label them this way?

That is very interesting, I’d not noticed that. They are certainly wired to the new boards in the same way they were to the old ones. I’ve been nowhere near the driver terminals and red bass lead and blue sleeve on the tweeter were/are still indicated positive on the crossovers. Falcon look to have marked the B110 terminal red too.

Makes me very worried about my JR149s though, I’d have surely gone with the driver indicator there. I really don’t want to be pulling those apart again! I’ll send Jerry an email at some point. Anyone know the JR149’s absolute phase? I should hopefully be able to tell which way the B110 moves with a 1.5V battery on the speaker lead without ripping it to bits.

 

[Graham H]

I bet there are a few repaired/rebuilt LS3/5as et al out there with incorrect phase - especially if Falcon B110s have been used as replacements and polarity labelling taken at face value.

 

[Tony L]

Just done the AA battery thing with a JR149 and it looks fine, connecting battery positive to red speaker-lead and the 110 cone moves forwards. Looking at the schematic that seems to be correct. That means either it was marked correctly or Jerry told me to do otherwise (I asked him quite a few questions at the time, but my memory is crap these days so I’ll have forgotten anything he said). At least I don’t need to pull the metal grille off again, which is what I was fearing!

 

[Tony L]

Back to the Gold crossvers and I very much enjoyed the LS3/5As tonight. I played Sufjan Steven’s Ascension, which is a very good modern electronica/alt type thing with a big modern sound and again it sounded rather more dynamic and present than it usually does up there (it always sounds great). Next up Coltrane’s Meditations which is a challenging but wonderful album. One of his most ‘out there’. Unlistenable on some systems, but here it was nicely sorted out and intelligible in a way that makes sense and really communicates. I’m enjoying this one more and more these days. No idea why Coltrane’s free era sounded so alienating at first. I’m totally at ease with it now.

 

[ToTo Man]

Just done the AA battery thing with a JR149 and it looks fine, connecting positive to red speaker-lead and the 110 cone moves forwards. Looking at the schematic that seems to be correct. That means either it was marked correctly or Jerry told me to do otherwise (I asked him quite a few questions at the time, but my memory is crap these days so I’ll have forgotten anything he said). At least I don’t need to pull the metal grille off again, which is what I was fearing!

How does the battery test confirm if the B110 is wired correctly wrt to the T27? Can you also see the direction of movement in the T27's dome?

I'd imagine it would be pretty audible if the two drivers were out of phase with each other as you'd surely see/hear a dip (or peak) at the XO freq. instead of a flat summation when listening on-axis with the T27.

 

[Tony L]

How does the battery test confirm if the B110 is wired correctly wrt to the T27? Can you also see the direction of movement in the T27's dome?

The T27 is correct, it was never in doubt. The question arose purely due to the odd markings on the B110 pictured upthread above. Thankfully the battery and schematic proves I’d got the 110 in the right way so no issue!

 

[Tony L]

Rereading the Stereophile review of the Gold Badge Falcons I notice a picture of the baffle with input wiring fitted and terminated with eyelets for the binding posts. As such there may well be an easier way of doing this upgrade without having to wield a hot soldering iron through a gap the size of a letter box! If anyone is planning this upgrade I’d certainly check this as I’m sure that would be an easier and far less risky approach (I’m still amazed I didn’t hit anything and got really clean well-flowed joints!).

PS Playing Keith Jarrett’s Yesterdays now. The one word review: ‘dynamics’. That’s the key upgrade here. They are still the same speaker; everything that was liked before is still there to be liked, they just have noticeably more headroom and life, or put another way, less dynamic compression. This makes them more open, clear, articulate and communicative. The nuance of a great jazz drummer is even more obvious, the lifetime experience of a great pianist evident in every keypress. It obviously hasn’t turned them into a Altec VOTT dynamically, physics is what it is, but they are more than an LS3/5a. Exactly the stuff our measurists have absolutely no idea how to measure as it is not a simplistic frequency response plot. It is however exactly what separates the great audio kit from the mundane.

 

[a.palfreyman]

Exactly the stuff our measurists have absolutely no idea how to measure

Nice work @Tony L
Hope your skin burn is recovering OK.

 

[Tony L]

Hope your skin burn is recovering OK.

Yes, I got away surprisingly lightly, barely a brush just below the knuckle joint of the index finger of my left hand which was holding one of the input wires in place. Just a little red and shiny, not enough to blister. The thing that amazes me is I didn’t hit anything in the speaker when snatching the iron away. I was far more worried about that than the minor burn!

 

[Martyn Miles]

When Tony L, says ‘they are more open, clear, articulate and communicative’, that’s just what I found the
Stirling V3s to be over the V2s.
Of course, the Falcons and Stirlings are different speakers but they appear to do similar things...