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It’s about time for another LS3/5a ( plus others ) Shootout.

Alvarado said:
Which of the Harbeth range (if any) are still considered to be LS3/5A? I understood they made them at some stage. Are the P3 ESR's considered to be LS3/5As?
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If a speaker doesn’t use the correct drivers and meet the other BBC specs, then it’s not an LS3/5a even if it sounds and looks a lot like one. The definition isn’t up for debate and it’s not a general name for small 2-way speakers. The excellent P3ESR has no qualifications whatsoever to be thought of as an LS3/5a but could be used in similar situations and, in fact was used by the BBC to monitor the World Service broadcast of the World Cup some years ago.

The only new LS3/5a currently available are the Falcons which use drivers built with the involvement of the original designer of the KEF drivers. The current Rogers Classics are a slightly grey area as they use reverse-engineered drivers, but perhaps that’s close enough - although a Chinese copy of an ETA 2824 watch movement is not actually the genuine Swiss Made article. Others like the Stirlings have tried to approach the sound of the LS3/5a but with totally different drivers and crossovers, so are more of a very nicely-engineered fudge than the real McCoy.
 
the list shortens then :)
Do the Chinese models use the correct drivers, or lookalike copies of those models? The original 80's speakers were licensed to several companies to make to spec. Those drivers are certainly not around now, so anything Chinese is a copy at best. How far away from the spec are the harbeths I wonder, given the variety that existed before?

The two companies that carried on making the speakers after the BBC contract vanished (Stirling and Falcon) made quite different speakers anyway as I understood, the Stirling making something quite new, based on what they thought the sonic signature of the old speakers was, wheras Falcon took the technical approach and used the specs to re make the drivers as they had been. I may have this wrong since it's an old memory, but post 1990, that designation (LS3 5a) was already quite a varied product in fact, if not in spirit.
 
Alvarado.

The answer is basically, no.
Alan Shaw of Harbeth never had much love for the ‘3/5a and claimed his HL-P3 was superior.
I had a pair.
They were very good.
The ‘ESR is considered a few models along from the original P3.
Superb speakers, no doubt.
 
Rockmeister said:
the list shortens then :)
Do the Chinese models use the correct drivers, or lookalike copies of those models? The original 80's speakers were licensed to several companies to make to spec. Those drivers are certainly not around now, so anything Chinese is a copy at best. How far away from the spec are the harbeths I wonder, given the variety that existed before?[QUOTE



This is a grey area, as the LS3/5a is a specification not a speaker.
Models made with Kef units can meet that specification, but models using different drivers
can also meet that spec.
At least, that’s how it was explained to be by a well known speaker designer I won’t name.
Martyn Miles.



[ QUOTE]The two companies that carried on making the speakers after the BBC contract vanished (Stirling and Falcon) made quite different speakers anyway as I understood, the Stirling making something quite new, based on what they thought the sonic signature of the old speakers was, wheras Falcon took the technical approach and used the specs to re make the drivers as they had been. I may have this wrong since it's an old memory, but post 1990, that designation (LS3 5a) was already quite a varied product in fact, if not in spirit.
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[/QUOTE]
 
Rockmeister said:
the list shortens then :)
Do the Chinese models use the correct drivers, or lookalike copies of those models? The original 80's speakers were licensed to several companies to make to spec. Those drivers are certainly not around now, so anything Chinese is a copy at best. How far away from the spec are the harbeths I wonder, given the variety that existed before?

The two companies that carried on making the speakers after the BBC contract vanished (Stirling and Falcon) made quite different speakers anyway as I understood, the Stirling making something quite new, based on what they thought the sonic signature of the old speakers was, wheras Falcon took the technical approach and used the specs to re make the drivers as they had been. I may have this wrong since it's an old memory, but post 1990, that designation (LS3 5a) was already quite a varied product in fact, if not in spirit.
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As far as I know, only Falcon use what could be considered original drivers because Malcolm Jones has overseen the production of the Falcon drivers based on his original design notes from when he designed the originals at KEF in the 60s. Rogers have built their own drivers from scratch in an attempt to copy the KEF drivers and had them made in China. No-one else is using anything that could be considered ‘original drivers’ in any sense, they’re just taking off the shelf ones and making a crossover to suit their characteristics - often to pleasing results.

The P3ESR makes no attempt to approach the LS3/5a spec as it is a totally separate design, the only similarity being its approximate dimensions and the 3 in its name. The LS3/5a is supposed to be a tightly defined thing, so that you could drop-in replace a speaker if it fails, which wouldn’t be possible with a mixed Falcon/P3 pair!

Falcon never had a contract from the BBC to make the LS3/5a during its original manufacturing period, as they were rejected as a licensee but they did build the crossover for others. Many years later they built their own drivers and got BBC approval to be a licensee around 2014, I think.
 
This is an obviously never ending subject, but ok, let’s ask ourselves - how narrow do we really want the definition LS3/5a to be? If you want to take the academic route and go down to the specifications AND manufacturing process/techniques used (I mean properly and fully, that’s what will give you the same speaker, not just a marketing description and a story), I am not sure any contemporary speaker can be called exactly the same LA3/5a as the originals first produced - and as we know they were neither perfect in terms of quality (far from by modern standards), nor intended for domestic use in the first place. And even if they could be 100% reproduced - would you really want one of these “originals” or a better, modern one in the spirit of the original concept. And would you actually choose the one that you think is closer to the original over the one that just sounds better to you? I think pretty much any manufacturer can call their small speaker an LS3/5a these days and this is getting overused, abused and a bit annoying, yes, but it’s not illegal as this is how BBC has set it up and in fact, I believe, encouraged it to be? You would have guessed I am not a collector but I do value the tradition and love the concept and, yes, love the sound - therefore I value the philosophy behind in its highest quality incarnation in terms of sound reproduction. To come to the question, if this was the P3ESR, I wouldn’t mind, not at all in fact (and I put it in this class), but for me another version in this class, the Stirling V3 sounded clearly superior, that’s all. So the primary question one needs to answer first and foremost is may be - what is your reason for wanting and buying such a speaker? Then it’s much easier.

To Martyn’s comment - from what I have seen, I don’t think A. Shaw dissociates the P3 from the BBC (and LS3/5a) tradition (I think he wants to be part of that story as it has served the company well, and is in fact the case) but has tried to draw a nice thick line and convey the message of his updated, best sounding modern design inspired by the BBC LS3/5a in this case, and so differentiate in marketing terms as well. I think that the P3ESR is in the spirit of the original LS3/5a and is likely to be indeed better than all the historic ones for contemporary domestic audio use. But I agree he may be uses this same strategy to differentiate from the modern “imitations”, associating them with the “flaws” (not for what they have been first intended but in modern terms) of the original historic ones. And that’s not necessarily the case as I and many others have come to find.
 
@EPear

I don’t know, but the BBC decided they needed a small speaker for their purposes and couldn’t find a decent one on the market, so designed their own one - in their nomenclature it’s defined as LS3/5a. They defined the materials, dimensions, drivers, and various aspects of performance very stringently then asked manufacturers to see if they could put the design into production and evaluated the offerings against their reference example and gave their approval in the form of a license to the manufacturers who were able to meet their design and performance parameters. Doesn’t seem very vague or subjective to me - the design and spec were very specific. I have a copy of the white paper here.

There wasn’t any option to use the name LS3/5a for a speaker that was made ‘in the spirit’ of the original as so many seemingly would like to claim today, it had to meet the spec and be approved to win the license and the name - one of the requirements was that of close matching because they needed to be able to be swapped over and have the same sound in the event of damage to one speaker. How is this possible if we start mixing pairs of eg. V3 Stirling and Spendor S3/5R together? They’re BBC-style monitors but they’re not LS3/5as, it’s that simple.

We can talk about the general idea and purpose of the LS3/5a as being a mini-monitor that’s great for speech and small scale acoustic music and suggest modern speakers which could be used in similar types of situations, or ones that offer improvements in bass and level in those situations, but they are not LS3/5as because it is not a generic subjective term for a small speaker and I don’t know why people are so keen to suggest otherwise. It could be that the name LS3/5a has an aura or glow to it and people want to feel part of that somehow.

The reason someone wants to buy an LS3/5a has nothing to do with definition as it’s already been defined by the BBC R&D department in the 70s or 80s depending on which version you mean. For what it’s worth, Ken Kessler in his review of the Falcon or Rogers (can’t recall which) said you can’t really compare these speakers with other modern options in the price range as so many price rivals will slaughter them for max playback levels, power handling and bass extension. Therefore, the only valid reason to buy one is because you simply crave the genuine article and no substitutes will do.

The Falcons that I own are in fact pretty much exactly as the original 15 Ohm versions were which is a key reason why I chose them. I’ve had the Stirling V2 and the P3ESR and found the latter obviously better in terms of bass extension, volume and flatness of response, but neither are real LS3/5as even if Doug did a very decent job trying to copy the real LS3/5a after the KEF drivers were no longer available and Alan Shaw made a great effort in bringing improvements to the genre of small BBC style monitors.

PS no idea why I’m still awake. Might put the Falcons on quietly now!
 
Thanks, you two, for your thoughts.
One thing that struck me, EPear, is your ‘would you really want one of those originals or a better, modern
one in the spirit of the original concept?’
I understand that’s what Graham Audio were attempting with their LS3/5.
 
Nagraboy said:
@EPear
PS no idea why I’m still awake. Might put the Falcons on quietly now!
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Yes, I think I could hear the Falcons playing in the background:), but then they are an admirable effort deserving a special place in history, especially the limited series (may be the golden spot where it all almost meets), no matter whether one can actually use a Falcon to swap for any of the very original BBC controlled production era series units. Indeed, what I meant as “in the spirit” would apply to the next period of BBC fairly relaxed licensing, which we are essentially choosing from - and yes, these versions can be so different that one has to spend the time and effort to listen carefully before deciding which one, but could be hugely rewarded - and I personally see this as the opportunity.
 
EPear said:
Yes, I think I could hear the Falcons playing in the background:), but then they are an admirable effort deserving a special place in history, especially the limited series (may be the golden spot where it all almost meets), no matter whether one can actually use a Falcon to swap for any of the very original BBC controlled production era series units. Indeed, what I meant as “in the spirit” would apply to the next period of BBC fairly relaxed licensing, which we are essentially choosing from - and yes, these versions can be so different that one has to spend the time and effort to listen carefully before deciding which one, but could be hugely rewarded - and I personally see this as the opportunity.
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From what I’ve seen a lot of early original 15 Ohm models have developed a large peak at 1kHz which has been growing with age, so drop in replacement might be tricky.
 
Nagraboy said:
From what I’ve seen a lot of early original 15 Ohm models have developed a large peak at 1kHz which has been growing with age, so drop in replacement might be tricky.
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Interesting, you say that age increases this peak? Some newer models (the Falcons included) have a prominent 1khz peak built-in.
Omer.
 
omers said:
Interesting, you say that age increases this peak? Some newer models (the Falcons included) have a prominent 1khz peak built-in.
Omer.
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So did the originals, but over time the old ones have seen a large increase in the peak.
 
Nagraboy said:
For what it’s worth, Ken Kessler in his review of the Falcon or Rogers (can’t recall which) said you can’t really compare these speakers with other modern options in the price range as so many price rivals will slaughter them for max playback levels, power handling and bass extension. Therefore, the only valid reason to buy one is because you simply crave the genuine article and no substitutes will do.
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I wonder if Jim Rogers had an opinion about this. I mean did he think his later small speakers which used different drivers etc were an improvement on LS3/5A?

(I am awaiting delivery of some JR149 MK 2s -- they're somewhere between Lancashire and me at the moment. And I just noticed that he presented the Mk2 as an improvement on the Mk1 in the advertising literature -- using better drivers etc.)
 
mandryka said:
I wonder if Jim Rogers had an opinion about this. I mean did he think his later small speakers which used different drivers etc were an improvement on LS3/5A?
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I’m sure he felt the MkI JR149 was an improvement on the LS3/5A, and the MkII 149 an improvement on the Mk I.

Annoyingly I have never compared any of them in the same system, in fact I’ve never even heard MkII 149s. I wanted a pair of MkIs as I had a pair with my very first system and wanted to revisit them, plus with the availability of new Falcon B110s and T27s it is possible to fully restore them to as-new performance (which I did as my original Kef drivers were obviously off-spec).
 
Tony L said:
I’m sure he felt the MkI JR149 was an improvement on the LS3/5A, and the MkII 149 an improvement on the Mk I.

Annoyingly I have never compared any of them in the same system, in fact I’ve never even heard MkII 149s. I wanted a pair of MkIs as I had a pair with my very first system and wanted to revisit them, plus with the availability of new Falcon B110s and T27s it is possible to fully restore them to as-new performance (which I did as my original Kef drivers were obviously off-spec).
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I'll set them up so I can do A/B comparisons when the Mk2s arrive -- should be here Tuesday if UPS is to be believed. My own JR149 Mk1s are sounding very good now, it took a bit of time for the new drivers to settle down (I remember we discussed it)
 
I’ll be interested to see what you think.

PS Where did you end up with the tweeter level control set? I have a bit of cut from the centre position.
 
Nagraboy said:
If a speaker doesn’t use the correct drivers and meet the other BBC specs, then it’s not an LS3/5a even if it sounds and looks a lot like one. The definition isn’t up for debate and it’s not a general name for small 2-way speakers.
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As far as I have read, I have still not seen the BBC specifications for what they consider is an official ls3/5a. I mean contemporary licensing specifications. It isn't up for debate, the definition is in the hands of the BBC and is a technical nomenclature. If they say the Stirling V2 or V3 is an ls3/5a, then so it is.
 
I hope the listening test if it occurs includes lots of '3alikes'. Anyway there'd not be much point testing anything pre 90's that was to the BBC spec, since I read above that these must sound exactly similar, and therefore!?
Where does draw the line I wonder?
 
@ampedup

The BBC don't use a uniform set of speakers for each situation now as they once did, so their original standards have no practical meaning anymore, other than to be a standard for manufacturers to aim for if they wish to. So the V2 or V3 might have BBC badges but they were given out by an organisation which doesn't even follow it's own rules any more.
 
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