Subwoofers and LS3/5As

[iparks]

I'd like to echo what @Hcanning said. I use a BK Gemini 2 with my Spendor S3/5R2 standmounts in a small living room with bay window and chimney alcoves. It takes patience to integrate the sub well, especially if limited on positioning.

For example, I recently relocated the sub from between the speakers (which are either side of fireplace on stands) to the bay, and this has highlighted some room for improvement in the subwoofer settings because I can pinpoint the location of the sub now.

However, I would not want to go back to using just the speakers now that I know how much low end was missing. It's easy to hear when the sub is switched off. In my opinion, as long as the sub is not distracting, it is a worthwhile addition.

 

[Hcanning]

I'd like to echo what @Hcanning said. I use a BK Gemini 2 with my Spendor S3/5R2 standmounts in a small living room with bay window and chimney alcoves. It takes patience to integrate the sub well, especially if limited on positioning.

For example, I recently relocated the sub from between the speakers (which are either side of fireplace on stands) to the bay, and this has highlighted some room for improvement in the subwoofer settings because I can pinpoint the location of the sub now.

However, I would not want to go back to using just the speakers now that I know how much low end was missing. It's easy to hear when the sub is switched off. In my opinion, as long as the sub is not distracting, it is a worthwhile addition.

Nice. Finding the configuration 'sweet spot' is both frustrating and rewarding at the same time!

A general rule of thumb when integrating a sub is that you should not notice its presence until you switch it off.

 

[ArtK]

I’ve had a pair of Spendor Classic 4/5 in a 4.5m x 4.5m room, some of which is a window bay and chimney alcoves. Overall they worked really well, and gave surprising presence and bass response (at times), even well out into the room when being listened to, say 50cm from any wall, 2 metres apart, 2 metres from the listening position, angled in. They disappear, image amazingly and were utterly coherent.

Weirdly, in the smaller bedroom next door (4m x 3.3m), they sounded a bit lost and lacked weight! Room acoustics I guess.

In the end, and after lots of agonising over it, I sold them and decided to upgrade to the Spendor Classic 3/1’s (due for delivery mid-March), which are a different beast. Ported and go a fair bit lower in the bass. When I first demoed them, I found them a bit much for the room and found the smaller speakers were a bit more involving in some ways. However, after keeping the 4/5’s for a while longer, I continued to feel dissatisfied with the level of scale and bass on offer (tried a sub, didn’t get on with it). While a sub added bloom, depth, and to a degree, scale (although the latter felt a bit artificial), it was a pain to integrate well, and I felt I was always faffing, depending on the track in question.

Regardless of following all the setup guides (admittedly by ear, without dsp), I was subtly aware of the sub at times. Coupled with the extra cables, clutter etc, I gave up on the idea. Yes, I am sure (a pair) of perfectly integrated subs could give great results. But I had neither the inclination, floor space or patience to go down that route.

So I then re-demoed the 3/1’s and gave them more time, but paid particular attention to playing with positioning, and tried them in other rooms in the house, and ended up preferring them, as an all-rounder, with more convincing scale and depth, better tone and texture of bass compared to the 4/5s with a sub, yet retaining (most) of the smaller speakers' other virtues. I think a lot of the initial feeling of ‘these may be too much for the room’ was as a result of not giving them a fair chance, and therefore not getting acclimatised to them (having been so used to the limited bass response of a ls3/5a type speaker, which was the norm of what my brain was used to).

Of course, ls3/5a types will always win out on imaging, coherence, disappearing, midrange speed, flexibility of positioning, but I also think that slightly bigger speakers of the same ilk (e.g. the 3/1s or the Graham ls6 etc) can get nearly there in those attributes, but have a significant advantage in the area of scale and depth, making them more adept all-rounders.

Bass extenders mentioned in this thread are an interesting one - would love to hear them...but they're certainly pricey, and I suspect I would have been left thinking ''why didn't I just buy bigger speakers?''. However, without hearing them, I am no authority on the subject.

The 3/1’s are great speakers. Congrats!

 

[ampedup]

I'm wondering about near-field subwoofer placement with ls3/5as. If the speakers are pulled well out into the middle of the room, closer to the listening chair, then can a subwoofer still be placed towards the rear of the room, well behind the speakers, or is it better to have it closer to the listening chair?

 

[Tony L]

I'm wondering about near-field subwoofer placement with ls3/5as.

You need to try it, but in my experience the best place for a sub in a nearfield environment is listed on eBay. They just do not work IME as you inevitably end up with such a large distance and angle between the speaker’s drivers and the sub. That translates to phase, time error etc, plus one never works as wherever you put it some bass instruments are rooted in place in a specific part of the soundstage. I remember hearing a dem of some comedically expensive Wilson Bensesh satelite/sub combo where they had stuck the huge sub over at one side of the setup to “prove it didn’t matter”. I had a listen to some Bill Evans where I knew the bass and drums were on the other side and it was just spectacularly wrong. A total mess. Sure, I’ve heard better installs than that, I’ve even owned a pair of quite large BK subs myself (trying to add bass to La Scalas), but every time I end up turning the sub down in incremental steps until it is off!

I suspect some of this is a ‘me’ thing as I’m a bass player so maybe more critical in that area, plus I seem very sensitive to time/phase/crossover issues etc, e.g. I struggle with Martin Logans, NBLs and other speakers that have huge distances between the drivers. I’m sure one reason I love mini-monitors is they behave very close to a point source. It brings a coherence I can’t live without. I’d certainly try and borrow a sub if you can before committing. Also expect the issues I describe to gradually creep up. It starts with a gut feeling something is wrong even if it all sounds great. It’s a music, not a hi-fi thing that I’m trying to describe here.

 

[ampedup]

Also expect the issues I describe to gradually creep up. It starts with a gut feeling something is wrong even if it all sounds great. It’s a music, not a hi-fi thing that I’m trying to describe here.

I can relate to that: You describe pretty well what I have experienced before with any subs and ls3/5a. Though I am curious about placing a sub behind my chair.

 

[canonman]

A cheap possibility to consider that I have actually tried with some success. Rogers AB33. They were also designed by Andy Whittle and look like slightly larger versions of the AB1. Obviously not the same drivers but they use a Rogers built drive unit and the crossover circuit is identical. They do work pretty well and act as stands. Size is 570 x 190 x 162 HWD
Shameless plug, I have unearthed my old pair in down sizing and need to find them a new home

 

[Tony L]

Though I am curious about placing a sub behind my chair.

Pretty sure that would just sound like a sound effect and swiftly become tiring.

 

[geoturbo]

I believe it can be done!

I disagree, having been through competition to integrate subwoofers in an even trickier situation and still being able to make them disappear - in car SQ competitions.. I don't know who else here has sat in a competition winning SQ car, but they sound incredible and the car simply disappears with the soundstage appearing on the bonnet.

Subs add to the air and 'ambience' of the upper registers.. It's uncanny once you have heard it.. but being in a position where it can be switched in and out, and adding the subwoofer 'in' improves the soundstage focus and width is quite amazing.. To let you know the lengths we go to to get the sub to integrate well, I used a 10" Velodyne active subwoofer, Nelson Pass designed Class A amplification, a DAC using Burr Brown PCM63K's and analogue active x overs with 32 bands of EQ per channel.. so not mucking about!

Fancy @Rug Doc mentions the hi-fi car thing as I had my most memorable experiences and listen in a car, 20 years or so ago, no digital stuff yet, class a amps, active analog xover, four or more ways in front, center channel, rear speakers for ambience, hard wired allpass passive xovers fine tuned by ear, a couple of 30cm woofers for under 40Hz frequencies only.. how could all that be so coherent, dynamic, you name it.. one of the best Italian cars of all time imho (have been very lucky this shop was in my town and honoured to be working there for a while too, because I have been in that shop more than at university lessons.. happy days!!).

As for integrating a sub in the house it takes a lot of effort and there is no guarantee (how the room reacts, just try it you will know later measuring it).. the main gizmo to have (a must imo) is continuous phase adjustment. When done right, by rotating the sub phase you can hear/decide at what depth to position the drums.

You would need to know also group delay.. my Behringer DCX2496 for instance introduces 1msec delay, sound travels roughly 1 foot in 1msec.. then I'd put my main sub at the distance of the main speakers minus 1 foot. Contrary to what I thought it is possible to cross this sub at around 100Hz, main speakers shall remain full range.

I am still learning here.. Of course three subs are meil than one and they do not need to be the same.. the more subs the less fussy will be their placement:

https://mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/

 

[ampedup]

With all this talk of subwoofers this week, I was prompted to mess around with my speaker placement, investigating the bass and sound staging of my Stirling V3s.
I spent some time in the near field, experiencing super-holographic deep imaging and the clarity of the midband and a modest amount of clean bass.

From the near-field (6 feet from me and far away from the back wall), I walked the speakers back in increments, going through a substantial bass null along the way. But this time, I left the boxes pretty close to the back wall (20") and side walls (24"). This is better than I expected. All perceptions of lightweight bass went away.....they just sound correct in the bandwidth presented, and in that position, wholly coherent. The soundstage is very wide, outside of the speaker positions, and I prefer the flattened soundstage depth rather than the holographic imaging. The combination of wall proximity and a tweak to the lower frequencies with the Loki equalizer brought me all I could want in bass lushness and extension. No sign of any boominess from the ls3/5a bass hump, with corner bass traps in place behind them. They are now 11 feet from my listening chair. Very satisfied.

 

[Tony L]

Certainly worth playing with location very carefully, both speakers and listening seat. There is a theory that in a typically sized rectangular UK living room with the speakers on the long wall firing across the narrow dimension that the place for them to be is about a metre or slightly more away from the front wall and well away from side walls. The theory being that the room node in a room such as this tends to be around 40Hz and this plonks the speakers on a point that can energise it. The really tight but falling bass from the LS3/5A doesn’t cause boom in a situation that would be disastrous for a typical ported box and their lift/bump at 100-110Hz compensates for the distance from the wall so they don’t sound thin or lean. Based on a little experimenting in two rooms here I think there is definitely something to this. There is a point where they really grow in stature and the bass sounds surprisingly deep and even. Positioning the seat for a bit of back-wall lift helps too, by necessity my main system seat is very close to the back wall (it is only a small room).

My setup in both rooms was hugely compromised (I just can’t keep them in that position in the “record shop” for fear of knocking into them when picking orders, and downstairs they were right in front of the massive Tannoys), but in both cases they sounded superb. In the latter position I was surprised by just how close they ran the Tannoys, I suspect someone who had heard neither speaker would struggle to pick which was playing at a moderate listening level (obviously the Tannoys have vastly more headroom!).

 

[S-Man]

Well my research has come to an end, the dinky little boxes can go back in their carton.

I just can't get past the way that a grand piano just doesn't sound all that grand through LS3/5As .

 

[ToTo Man]

Well my research has come to an end, the dinky little boxes can go back in their carton.

I just can't get past the way that a grand piano just doesn't sound all that grand through LS3/5As .

Do you feel this is a result of the 3/5A's 'saddle' in the lower midrange compared to the likes of the JR149 and S3/5R which sound fuller in this area?

 

[Gervais Cote]

Well my research has come to an end, the dinky little boxes can go back in their carton.

I just can't get past the way that a grand piano just doesn't sound all that grand through LS3/5As .

I came to a similar conclusion in the past and forgot about the project.
Nevertheless, they amazed me a lot in lighter music such as Gregorian songs, cantatas, oboes and similar "organic" sounds of lower dynamic.

 

[Tony L]

I really like the way they do piano! Stick on some well recorded solo Chopin or whatever and they sound superb. Same with well recorded close-mic’d stuff, e.g. try Herbie Hancock’s River.

 

[S-Man]

Do you feel this is a result of the 3/5A's 'saddle' in the lower midrange compared to the likes of the JR149 and S3/5R which sound fuller in this area?

I think so.
JR149s sound more natural to me. I haven't heard S3/5Rs.

 

[S-Man]

I really like the way they do piano! Stick on some well recorded solo Chopin or whatever and they sound superb. Same with well recorded close-mic’d stuff, e.g. try Herbie Hancock’s River.

In terms of timing I agree, but there's just not enough weight to the left hand.
Of course it could also be a room thing. I had planned to move the whole lot into the back room to see if the nearfield thing in the other thread can work well with the bass extenders. But I ran out of motivation after putting my own speakers back - just ended up listening all evening. I suppose it's a bit unfair to expect the T27 to compete with an OW1.

 

[Tony L]

Remember I listen in nearfield, a triangle of about 1.5m or so, plus I use a pair of very nice old Leaks that do bring a surprising sense of body and scale to the LS3/5As. These little speakers love valves IME.

 

[Fatmarley]

These little speakers love valves IME.

Maybe that's what subjectively fills in the lower mid suck-out? When I tried a valve buffer once (my only experience with valves though), it seemed to thicken or warm-up the midrange a touch.

 

[S-Man]

Nearfield:

Probably worth remembering that the LS3/5A was never designed as a hi-fi speaker. The JR149 was.
LS3/5A was designed for voice monitoring in an outside broadcast van.

Valves:
I had a Leak St20 many years ago. It was mainly original/unrestored with just a few parts that were out of spec replaced. I didn't find it a particularly "valvey" sound. Actually it had some similar characteristics to the LS3/5A, with a slightly enhanced upper midrange. When I got my Grant GL50 (originally using KT77s, but modded to use KT88s) it beat my St20 in every way, including a slightly warmer midrange. FWIW it also beat a pair of EAR509 Anniversarys. So the St20 was sold.
Of my many amps, the Grant works best with the Spendor LS3/5As. However it doesn't fill the lower-mid gap. It smooths over the slight graininess I hear in both the LS3/5A and the JR149.

Context:
IMHO both the LS3/5A and (particularly the) JR149 are preferable to Stirling V2 and P3ESRs. The latter are probably better in hi-fi attributes, but the former are a more enjoyable listen.

Thinking aloud:
I wonder if the LS3/5a might suffer from thermal effects. For the same SPL as a JR149, the LS3/5A will need to dissipate rather more heat inside the cabinet. The JR has a metal cabinet which must be more efficient at removing heat than the wooden sealed box of the 3/5A.
Drive unit parameters change significantly with temperature. I wonder if the sound of the LS3/5A changes quite a bit over a period of use?

Confused.com:
A pair of restored TL12.1s sounded better with my pals JR149s than his GL50, which in turn sounds better than my GL50 because his runs GEC KT88s. And yet I preferred my GL50 to my St20 (in my pre-bass extender days).