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Spendor S3/5R2 speakers.

M

Martyn Miles

pfm Member
I have wanted to try a pair of small ‘LS3/5a type’ Spendors for some time, as I know the LS3/5a very well.
I’ve owned many makes of the famous BBC speaker, as well as building ( Falcon Acoustics & Stirling Broadcast ) and repairing them.
Not to mention ‘3/5a clones...
Spendor S3/5R2s don’t come on the market very often, so when a competively priced pair were advertised
over the Christmas holiday I went for them.
As for what they sound like, I am really surprised how good they are.
Sitting in place of my Spendor BC1s, the family resemblance is remarkable.
By halfway through an LP I had completely adjusted to the smaller speakers.
It’s good to have another pair of Spendors in the house.
 
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Had a pair briefly myself, before going back to P3ESR. They’re nice, but to me the Harbeths are quite a lot better. I did like them though.
 
I would agree with you that the P3-ESRs are probably superior to the 3/5R2s overall, but the little Spendors
have many attributes.
I’ve been giving them an extended listening and they’ve grown on me. Unlike some speakers, you can listen
for hours without fatigue.
There has been some programme material which LS3/5as have had difficulty with. Not the 3/5R2s.
The top end is particularly good, which is where LS3/5as can encounter difficulties at times.
The mid. is ‘open’, as you’d expect from a small Spendor with LS3/5a heritage.
Bass response is what is expected from a small sealed cabinet, but it has a ‘agilty’ and ‘rightness.’
Piano sounds very good, if not up to ‘ESR standards.
Soundstage width and depth are superb, equal to the LS3/5a and the little Harbeths.
These speakers really do play music.
 
I have the Harbeths, 3/5Rs and 3/5R2s. I wouldn’t describe the Harbeths as better. They’re different and perhaps slightly more adaptable to room size / positioning. I described the differences and similarities in another thread. The 3/5R offers the best value. If you can’t afford ls3/5a or Harbeth prices, they’re your solution.
 
Martyn, I’d be interested in how you find the Spendors cf LS3/5as. I felt the HLP3ESR was closest to them but I’ve not had a pair of LS3/5as in my hands for over 10 years, so was working on memory.

Here’s the 3/5Rs I’m listening to at the moment ( had R4 TWAO on ). In their position and in this room, they’re perfect. I can’t think what would be an improvement in this context.

2lm3wup.jpg


1.8m equilateral triangle, 30cm out from rear wall.
 
If found your thread and recall reading it, but not taking it all in even though I contributed.
I basically agree with your findings re. the comparison between the Spendors and Harbeths.
I’ve not done a real comparison between the two as the Harbeths on on a second system, but
will do.
Mainly I have substituted the 3/5R2s for the BC1s on my main system. As I said, it’s the Spendor family
resemblance which was so noticeable.
As you see, I have a soft spot for Spendors.
As for LS3/5as, I don’t have a pair in the house at the present time.
They do ‘turn up’ from time to time...
 
Apart from the JR149, I have yet to hear a 3/5A or any of its variants, it's still on my bucket list of things to do. Measurements can only reveal so much of course, but interestingly the Stereophile measurements of the P3ESR and S3/5R2 suggest they have fairly similar frequency responses with the Harbeth perhaps being the more neutral of the two and the Spendor the warmer of the two. The Falcon 3/5A by comparison has a far more distinctive frequency response and looks to be by far the least linear of the three, yet it consistently impresses in every demonstration it partakes in.

EDIT - I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the JR149, @Martyn Miles, assuming you've owned or heard them?
 
I had 149s with matching sub about 18 years ago. I was underwhelmed and didn’t think they had the 3/5a magic despite the close electrical similarity. They might just have been off- I really did want to keep them. Theyre design beauties.
Interested that the spendor looks fuller down below than the HLP3ESR to you. I found the opposite- with both Spendor variants drier in that range, with the Harb being closer to the LS3/5a. For that reason the Harbeth May be a bit more of an all rounder.
 
ToTo Man said:
Apart from the JR149, I have yet to hear a 3/5A or any of its variants, it's still on my bucket list of things to do. Measurements can only reveal so much of course, but interestingly the Stereophile measurements of the P3ESR and S3/5R2 suggest they have fairly similar frequency responses with the Harbeth perhaps being the more neutral of the two and the Spendor the warmer of the two. The Falcon 3/5A by comparison has a far more distinctive frequency response and looks to be by far the least linear of the three, yet it consistently impresses in every demonstration it partakes in.

EDIT - I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the JR149, @Martyn Miles, assuming you've owned or heard them?
Click to expand...

PM sent on my thoughts.

Re. the Falcon impresses in every demonstration, yes it certainly does.
I have owned them and, although very good, I preferred the P3-ESR in the long term.
It’s all very personal and speakers will always be so...
 
TheDecameron said:
Interested that the spendor looks fuller down below than the HLP3ESR to you. I found the opposite- with both Spendor variants drier in that range, with the Harb being closer to the LS3/5a. For that reason the Harbeth May be a bit more of an all rounder.
Click to expand...

I inferred this from the Stereophile graphs as the Spendor's 150Hz bass hump bleeds through to around 500Hz while the Harberth's bass hump returns to flat by 300Hz. This of course could very much be room/position dependant, which exposes the shortcomings of my making inferences from graphs alone!

TheDecameron said:
I had 149s with matching sub about 18 years ago. I was underwhelmed and didn’t think they had the 3/5a magic despite the close electrical similarity. They might just have been off- I really did want to keep them. Theyre design beauties.
Click to expand...

IME with JR149s, and perhaps any loudspeaker using vintage T27 and B110 drive units, operational condition is a significant factor. Like you, I really wanted to love them, and I actually went through several pairs of JR149s before finding a pair that had that amazing smoothness and openness combined with sparkle.
 
ToTo Man said:
IME with JR149s, and perhaps any loudspeaker using vintage T27 and B110 drive units, operational condition is a significant factor. Like you, I really wanted to love them, and I actually went through several pairs of JR149s before finding a pair that had that amazing smoothness and openness combined with sparkle.
Click to expand...

I could instantly spot my pair of 149s were off-spec just by panning some white noise between them when they were sitting next to each other in the floor (I do this with all second hand speakers as it reveals any issues real fast). All drivers “worked”, but they did not behave as a matched pair any more, they sounded like two different speakers and certainly couldn’t hold the strong central image one expects from 149s. Speaking to Jerry at Falcon (who clearly knows far more than most about these drivers) implied this is far from unusual and as far as he’s concerned most vintage Kef drivers (and therefore pairs of LS3/5As, 149s etc) will be well off-spec by now as the glues they used ages in somewhat random ways.

I suspect this may be why some audiophiles are kind of sniffy about LS3/5As, then hear a new Falcon pair and are knocked out by them. The old ones are likely quite a way ‘off’. I have a feeling that my 149s with their full set of new Falcon B110s and T27s will be amongst very, very few out there that actually sound as they should do. Allegedly the glues used in the reissue drivers should be a lot more stable long-term, it is about the only thing they altered in the new production.
 
As I’ve built ( and owned ) Falcons, I would agree with Tony and Jerry B. re. comparison with old and new LS3/5as and their drive units.
Old ‘3/5as I’ve owned and repaired have that lovely smoothness and warmth so beloved by ‘3/5a enthusiasts,
but the Falcons have that openness and ‘speed’ missing from old ones.
Whether everyone likes it is another matter...
 
ToTo Man said:
I inferred this from the Stereophile graphs as the Spendor's 150Hz bass hump bleeds through to around 500Hz while the Harberth's bass hump returns to flat by 300Hz. This of course could very much be room/position dependant, which exposes the shortcomings of my making inferences from graphs alone!.
Click to expand...

I was surprised when I went back and looked at the Stereophile graphs because while not being able to translate graphs readily into what Im actually hearing, I’d have said what I was hearing was Harbeth = LS3/5a upper bass hump and Spendor = no hump.
Both Spendor variants are quite different sounding from the Harbeth and I have a soft spot for the original 3/5R over the R2. Someone on the earlier thread described the SQ differences very succunctly.

Going back to points raised above by Tony and yourself regarding the 149- replacement Falcon drivers would appear the way to go....or if Falcon decided to remake the 149.
 
TheDecameron said:
Going back to points raised above by Tony and yourself regarding the 149- replacement Falcon drivers would appear the way to go....or if Falcon decided to remake the 149.
Click to expand...

Falcon did get as far as prototyping a 149-influenced speaker a year or so ago. Certainly not a 149 in any real sense as an entirely different cabinet construction using carbon fibre, external crossovers etc. It would be interesting to hear them, but the suggestion was they would have ended up eye-wateringly expensive. The beauty of the original ones IMHO is just how cleverly they were made, the cylindrical cab just being a rolled flat sheet of aluminium joined at the rear. Not a huge materials cost, just some really sharp lateral thinking. Apparently Jim Rogers served a little time as a sheet metal-worker before moving into audio design, so had retained a few tricks! IIRC the 149s were always just a little cheaper than LS3/5As despite having a more complex and to this day unique cab, the difference being offset by not having to pay the BBC a license fee. It still amazes me there have been no later rip-offs of the 149 as it really is a clever design managing to provide an inert non-resonant cab with very little undesirable mass.
 
I have been spending some time with the S3/5R2s on a different system. A very expensive SONY CD player, the
XA 777ES, with a Quad 34/303 amplifier.
They’ve ‘come to life’ to coin a well-known phrase.
The speakers sound ‘bigger’ than previously and the top end is very natural, along with a subjectively extended
bass end.
Those subtle details that Alan Shaw of Harbeth says are lost without a Radial cone are there in all their glory.
I’ll swear I have heard things that were previously lost with the ‘ESRs.
I think I’ll have to revise my previous statement that the Harbeths are superior to the Spendors...
 
TheDecameron said:
Martyn, I’d be interested in how you find the Spendors cf LS3/5as. I felt the HLP3ESR was closest to them but I’ve not had a pair of LS3/5as in my hands for over 10 years, so was working on memory.

Here’s the 3/5Rs I’m listening to at the moment ( had R4 TWAO on ). In their position and in this room, they’re perfect. I can’t think what would be an improvement in this context.

2lm3wup.jpg


1.8m equilateral triangle, 30cm out from rear wall.
Click to expand...

Have just seen this thread - are these the speakers I sold you a few years ago? If so, glad they're still doing the business.
 
JonR said:
Have just seen this thread - are these the speakers I sold you a few years ago? If so, glad they're still doing the business.
Click to expand...
Good to hear from you Jon! No, an eBay scraper bought your pair from me on here some years ago and hiked them on eBay. I foolishly replaced them with ATC 7s and bought the ones in the pic only recently from a hospice charity eBay seller. They are fantastic speakers and I went out and bought a brand new pair of 3/5R2s for another room too. What are you using yourself these days?
 
TheDecameron said:
Good to hear from you Jon! No, an eBay scraper bought your pair from me on here some years ago and hiked them on eBay. I foolishly replaced them with ATC 7s and bought the ones in the pic only recently from a hospice charity eBay seller. They are fantastic speakers and I went out and bought a brand new pair of 3/5R2s for another room too. What are you using yourself these days?
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Nice one, TheD.

I am currently using Kudos X3s - marvellous little floorstanders which fill my (admittedly rather small) living room space just fine.

I've still got my 20+ year old Harbeth HLP3ESs boxed up in the garage - I will have to have them out for another listen one of these days.
 
JonR said:
Nice one, TheD.

I am currently using Kudos X3s - marvellous little floorstanders which fill my (admittedly rather small) living room space just fine.

I've still got my 20+ year old Harbeth HLP3ESs boxed up in the garage - I will have to have them out for another listen one of these days.
Click to expand...

And you won’t be disappointed...
 
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