So how good is the LS3/5a?

[Infinitely Baffled]

Ok, everybody, get your prejudices out and dust them off! Here is what I suspect is one of the all-time favourite chestnuts/discussion points/spite-inducing debates in our little world of hi-fi.

First, a confession: I have only heard LS3/5as once. It was about 30 years ago in a high-end hi-fi dealer in Cambridge Circus, London. I was in there to listen to (and subsequently buy) an Arcam CD player, but the salesman used the little monitors to demo it to me. After the inevitable "wow, they sound so big - but they are so little" moment, I ceased paying attention to them. It was not what I was there for after all. But the memory that stayed with me was a favourable one.

Fast forward 30 years and I know more about hi-fi than I did then. At least enough to be aware of the almost "holy" status these speakers have. That there are folks who revere them so deeply they will have nothing else. The prices asked for them, too, suggest unbounded respect (or should that be unbounded avarice?)
I still haven't heard them again, though, until ...

I am currently amusing myself by faffing around putting together a decent monaural radio-playing system for my garage/workshop, which is quite big. I have a Troughline mono tuner hooked up to a nice mono Dynatron valve amp, that Jez rebuilt for me. So I have been experimenting with odd and inexpensive speaker arrangements to see what would work to finish the system off. So far I have tried a home-made OB confection using a Goodmans full-range driver, Mordaunt Short Festival 2, Kef K2 Celeste and Rogers JR 149. It's my experiments with this last one that have prompted this thread. I was trying it out (just the one, of course) at the same time as my homebrew OB Goodmans job. Maybe that didn't help. The Goodmans was simply glorious - a bit shallow in the bass, maybe, but detailed, clear, rounded and musical. Just lovely. Switch to the JR149s, and what a shock! It was as if I had hit the secret "mufflebox" button on the amp. It was just as if someone was speaking to me from deep inside a box. Yes, the tones were rich and euphonious, there was a good even coverage of frequencies from bottom to top, but it was "heavy" sounding, and congested, as though the sound was having a struggle to escape and reach me. I was very surprised, knowing how adored these speakers are. Now, I know a JR149 is not an LS3/5a, but from everything I have read there is at least a strong family resemblance. So is this really what the famed BBC small monitor sounds like? Like someone "on the other side" is trying to make contact? Of course, you can't discount the possibility that my example was duff, but certainly, against the other odds and sods I tried, The Rogers would be my last choice.

For the sake of finishing this story off, I can say that the best sound undoubtedly came from the Goodmans OB (but it is huge and ugly), the little Festivals acquitted themselves extremely well - they are very likeable little speakers that I will have to find a use for somewhere. For 80 squid, a real bargain! The Kef Celestes were very interesting indeed. Not much bigger than an LS3/5a and immensely heavy for their size, they contain one of Kef's early "racetrack" shaped woofers and a tiny metal-dome tweeter. They are fabulously energetic and very solid in the bass - lots to like - but the tweeters just have too much "sting" to make them a comfortable listen. Very nice, though, I don't really want to part with them (certainly given the £1-17/6d I would get for them). I feel there is a very fine speaker in there somewhere trying to get out - if only I knew how to liberate it.

OK, chums, have at it! Have I got it wrong about LS3/5as or not?
IB