Tony L
Administrator
Those are my thoughts exactly. My intention in buying the Radford was to use it with some big Tannoys (which I'm still looking for!) but having read about how nice LS3/5As are, in particular with valve amps and the kind of music I find myself listening to a lot these days (particularly folk and jazz), I'm interested in trying a pair.
You’ve definitely got to try them. They do seem to come alive with good valves upstream IME. I’m very pleased my first LS3/5A listening was in this context (my Falcons got hooked straight up to the Leaks). I recently picked up a nice Pass class A solid state amp, and I’ve not got the LS3/5As to sing on that yet, they much prefer valves to my ears, whereas the 149s sound very good on the Pass. It all goes to show just how important context/synergy is as if you were trying to decide which speaker was “best” you’d pick one pair in one context, the other pair in the other. No overall winner, just different systems. I’ve become increasingly jaded by people (paid reviewers or punters) ranking stuff as everything is about context. Everything anyone says about anything is true to their reality, e.g. LS3/5As really can sound dull as ditchwater in the wrong context, just as they can sound amazing in the right one.