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Graham Audio LS5/9

sunbeamgls said:
All this about FR measurement is not the key thing with these speakers. They're "polite" and that won't show in the FR plots - some would say laid back, I would say lacking drive and dynamics. Some will like this, others not.
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not my experience, quite the opposite.
 
sunbeamgls said:
Would be good to understand the reasons please
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I've tried to like the BBC designs for as long as i can remember and have found them very good on certain types of music but they just don't do it for me. After a while the dips starts to become fairly obvious. The BBC sound signature is warm and soft and generally causes them to distort badly when turned up.
 
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There are some ( mainly Harbeth owners ) who look down on the 5/9. They contend things have moved on from these old BBC designs.
I can't comment, as I have never heard the Graham, but it has been widely accepted by many.
 
Martyn Miles said:
There are some ( mainly Harbeth owners ) who look down on the 5/9. They contend things have moved on from these old BBC designs.
I can't comment, as I have never heard the Graham, but it has been widely accepted by many.
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Interesting to think of the Harbeths as modern designs...

(this is an observation, not a view on if older designs are better or worse)
 
sunbeamgls said:
Interesting to think of the Harbeths as modern designs...

(this is an observation, not a view on if older designs are better or worse)
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I suppose you could say Harbeth follow BBC principles using modern materials and techniques.
I am a big fan of BBC speaker design and love the LS3/5a, but prefer the Harbeth P3-ESR for long-term listening.
 
I've heard the Graham LS5/9 a couple of times, and it was a pleasure, lovely speakers.

The Harbeth M30 eqvivalent not bad either.

If I was shopping speakers in that pricerange I would happily choose.
 
Cereal Killer said:
I've tried to like the BBC designs for as long as i can remember and have found them very good on certain types of music but they just don't do it for me. After a while the dips starts to become fairly obvious. The BBC sound signature is warm and soft and generally causes them to distort badly when turned up.
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I would agree that most won't play very loud - they've been balanced to sound right at civilised levels - and they they are probably not the right speakers for heavy metal or electronic music.
But for "serious music", as the BBC RD once wrote in one of their papers, they're amazing.
 
Martyn Miles said:
There are some ( mainly Harbeth owners ) who look down on the 5/9. They contend things have moved on from these old BBC designs.
I can't comment, as I have never heard the Graham, but it has been widely accepted by many.
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Many Harbeth are brand faithful and they congregate around Pastor Shaw at the HUG.

Shaw is rightly critical of the original LS5/9 design but the Graham Audio version was optimised by Derek Hughes, who after selling Spendor has worked with Shaw and designed for Stirling, Graham Audio and Quad, and is probably just as good as the M30.1
 
vln said:
Yeah. Or maybe I'll just splash out on the new Dynaudio Confidence 20.
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confidence 20 use a 6.5 inch woofer vs a 8 inch woofer of the graham.
just for this, i cannot take seriously a 6.5 inch bass speaker. very limited spl wise, distortion will be easily too high, limited extension. all this even more expensive then the ls59
 
Ayya Khema said:
confidence 20 use a 6.5 inch woofer vs a 8 inch woofer of the graham.
just for this, i cannot take seriously a 6.5 inch bass speaker. very limited spl wise, distortion will be easily too high, limited extension. all this even more expensive then the ls59
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I was being tongue in cheek there - of course there are a lot of differences between those two speakers, one of them being that the Dyns are twice as expensive than the LS5/9.

Also, the Dyns use in house drivers, while the LS5/9 are not. And there are probably more people working in Dynaudio's R&D department than at the entire company that is Graham Audio. And there is no hope in hell that they ever get anywhere near to obtaining a testing facility like this:


In Graham Audio's defence, I'm not sure in which direction large companies like B&W, Dynaudio, Focal etc. are moving with their new owners, and with the changing market re expensive high end speakers. Graham Audio seems to be bit removed from all that (in a good way, as I stated in my OP). Maybe in 5 years, those three companies I mentioned and others like them may end up only producing wireless soundbars that end up as landfill 3 years after the purchase because they are unserviceable.
 
vln said:
I was being tongue in cheek there - of course there are a lot of differences between those two speakers, one of them being that the Dyns are twice as expensive than the LS5/9.

Also, the Dyns use in house drivers, while the LS5/9 are not. And there are probably more people working in Dynaudio's R&D department than at the entire company that is Graham Audio. And there is no hope in hell that they ever get anywhere near to obtaining a testing facility like this:


In Graham Audio's defence, I'm not sure in which direction large companies like B&W, Dynaudio, Focal etc. are moving with their new owners, and with the changing market re expensive high end speakers. Graham Audio seems to be bit removed from all that (in a good way, as I stated in my OP). Maybe in 5 years, those three companies I mentioned and others like them may end up only producing wireless soundbars that end up as landfill 3 years after the purchase because they are unserviceable.
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That is a superb resource, hardly anyone measures their speakers with that degree of professionalism.
Keith
 
I cannot comment on the 5/9, but I can offer a comment on the LS6/f, as I’ve had them on long term loan from Strictly Stereo whilst awaiting my 8c’s.

I’d easily live with these speakers. I’m feeding them with a av receiver and Innuos Zenith etc.

They are somewhat different to the Naim SL2 I had in the room before, but seem more transparent. They are not bright, but very clear. They also go relatively loud and deep if needed.

Lovely speakers imv.
 
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