LS3/5A Blog

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A Blog Pt 1 - Long and winding road.

I bought a pair of these and have decided I'd do a blog of my findings and experiments. Don't get too excited.

Stay tuned.

[Alex_UK]

Sounds interesting, Andrew - which make of LS3/5A - or is that a secret? Will stay tuned! :)

[Lawrence001]

Have wanted a pair for years and heard a pair once at a demo that sounded lovely. Unfortunately the price was too high and he wouldn't budge (didn't really want to sell them apparently, it was the wife that wanted him to get rid of them [emoji23]) . So will follow with interest.

[Barry]

I could never understand why people got so excited about LS3/5As. They were designed by the BBC and intended for use solely as near-field monitors in their outside broadcast vans. They do a fine job in the intended situation, but most music lovers would not use them that way.

Their make is somewhat irrelevant as to be awarded a manufacturing licence by the BBC, prospective manufacturers had to follow the construction precisely: drive units; crossover, and cabinet materials.

They are excellent speakers, but only when used as intended, and sadly not worth the absurd prices being asked these days.

Will be interested to read how you find yours, how you use them, and what mods you try out on them.

[Macca]

I could never understand why people got so excited about LS3/5As. They were designed by the BBC and intended for use solely as near-field monitors in their outside broadcast vans. They do a fine job in the intended situation, but most music lovers would not use them that way.

Their make is somewhat irrelevant as to be awarded a manufacturing licence by the BBC, prospective manufacturers had to follow the construction precisely: drive units; crossover, and cabinet materials.

They are excellent speakers, but only when used as intended, and sadly not worth the absurd prices being asked these days.

Will be interested to read how you find yours, how you use them, and what mods you try out on them.

I don't know, some people's listening rooms are about the size of an outside broadcast van, the old ones anyway.

I agree the prices are mostly stupid but the speaker does have a certain charm to its sound.

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A Blog Pt 2 - Why bother?


As a younger man I was really into trying to learn as much as possible about this hobby, fast forward nearly 25 years and I'm a very much jaded individual who still has a passion for the hobby but with a more sensible and realistic prespective. One thing that always interested me was the story of the LS3/5A and the passion that they seemed to generate especially with Chineese and Japanese audiophiles. I have seen the cost of these speakers slowly increase as the years have gone by. I would have been a rich man if I had invested in Gold and Ls3/5a's!!! I would never buy an older pair of LS3/5A's, many have been faked, bodged, tinkered, and more than likely well out of spec. I understand people like nostalgia but I'm a little more clinical in nature and decided that I would like to try a new pair. I did some research and could not accept some of the designs as being faithful to the originals. My only option (as I saw it) was to buy a pair of Falcon LS3/5A's. I was taken by the attention to detail but even then there has to be a compromise and in this instance it was the cross over. OK, not maybe exactly to BBC spec but I'd be happy to accept that one compromise.

The cost of new LS3/5A's has also been steadily rising and I was not prepared to pay the asking prices. Plenty of examples has been floating around on the market but always a little too costly, sometimes not the correct veneer, sometimes not the correct XO spec, I wanted gold badge versions. I did consider buying the DIY FALCON Ls3/5a but came to the conclusion that I probably loose quite a bit of money rather than recouping a decent percentage of money spent on a professionally constructed pair. So, time passed by and five years later a pair cropped up which was ever so slightly more than what I wanted to pay but what they hell, I'm getting older and my ears are getting worse. :) I ended buying a mint pair in Walnut and so began my adventure. These speakers are nowhere near the best speaker I have heard but I'm interested in seeing what other people see in them. This project will likely see me through until the end of the year, maybe into next year, we shall see.

[Jimbo]

I heard a pair of these back in 1984 set up in a small room and they sounded amazing for their size. A perfect speaker once you can get your head around their limitations which are obvious due to their size. But once heard never forgotten!

[Wakefield Turntables]

I heard a pair of these back in 1984 set up in a small room and they sounded amazing for their size. A perfect speaker once you can get your head around their limitations which are obvious due to their size. But once heard never forgotten!

I have drawn the same conclusion. I'm beginning to see that they can be used as a specific transcriber of specific music. Piano and chamber music seem to sound excellent.

[Jimbo]

I have drawn the same conclusion. I'm beginning to see that they can be used as a specific transcriber of specific music. Piano and chamber music seem to sound excellent.

Spot on Andy, better with acoustic classical music rather than heavy rock!:rock:

[Wakefield Turntables]

Electronic music also seems to be very well represented. I'm listening to some DECCA Phase 4 records of MOOG electronic music. Sounds pretty good so far, excellent seperation across the sound stage.

[Barry]

I don't know, some people's listening rooms are about the size of an outside broadcast van, the old ones anyway.

I agree the prices are mostly stupid but the speaker does have a certain charm to its sound.

True the older BBC OB vans were large, but the sound mixing section was only large enough for two engineers.

The LS3/5As are well regarded by the Japanese. The floor area of a typical Japanese living room is 6 Tatami mats in size, or about 100 square feet; quite a bit bigger than that of the sound area of an OB van. So maybe the LS3/5As can be used 'far field' with acceptable results.

No doubt Andrew will be able to corroborate this or not.

[Wakefield Turntables]

I'm doing a "golden triangle" setup (well a rough version), speakers are approx 1.7m apart and I'm sat 1.7m from the speaker. Quite a decent wide soundstage with nice depth. I'm quite surprised by these little things.

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A BLOG - Part III - Rainy Sunday afternoon messing about.

The last couple of days have been spent messing around and doing a little research into how to get the best from these speakers. I have discovered that space (as always) will have a bit of an effect on my findings. Ideally I need approx 45cm from the wall edge for each speaker and a seperation distance of 2.4m, that's simply not going to happen in my current listening room. I've just about managed 40cm from the wall edge and could probably do 1.72m speaker seperation distance, so not optimal. The second area of experimentation has been speaker stands. I'm currently using a homebrew made set from garage scraps which were specially optimised for my JR149 speakers (now safely packed away). Recommended speaker height is approx 60cm, I'd produced something that was approximately 62cm in height. Things didn't actually sound too bad at 62cm but things sound even better at 61cm, so I think I'd got better ear position for the tweeters. I did look into some of the specially designed speaker stands for the LS3/5A and most seemed to be 60-61cm tall. Material composition seems quite relevant with most people seeming to recommend heavy mass open steel framed designs. I'm going to be hitting a brick wall here as I only have 2x4 timber, birch ply or bamboo :eek:. I guess I can have fun (remember that what this project is about) messing around with various bits and pieces that I have laying around. I might buy a pair of metal speaker stands if I can see something which is local and cheap enough. I really could do with making some more stands for the LS3/5A's so I can get better speaker placement and ideally get an optimal speaker placement measurements for my room.

Finally, I have also changed speaker cable from Duelund tinned copper to Nordost SPM Reference cables. I had the Nordost sitting around in my spares box for roughly 10 years and it was earmarked for sale up until now. I much prefer the sound of the silver plated copper over the Duelund stuff, I really like the Duelund stuff so I will keep that and maybe use for a future project. I also have some solid core copper cables that I may try but that's for another time.

As ever, stay tuned.

[Jimbo]

The best I heard the LS3/5A was on stands about 4 foot in height in complete free space away from walls and boundaries. They created a fabulous 3 D soundstage where you could walk around the performers. I even remember the music, Michael Pretorious Terpsicore. I thought they were amazing for their size. The following week I went back to the same dealer and he had some Spendor SP2s set up in the same place.

Game over!:)

[Wakefield Turntables]

The best I heard the LS3/5A was on stands about 4 foot in height in complete free space away from walls and boundaries. They created a fabulous 3 D soundstage where you could walk around the performers. I even remember the music, Michael Pretorious Terpsicore. I thought they were amazing for their size. The following week I went back to the same dealer and he had some Spendor SP2s set up in the same place.

Game over!:)

4ft high stands? I notice a difference of just 1cm!!!! The soundstage is somethings else on these little boxes.

[Jimbo]

4ft high stands? I notice a difference of just 1cm!!!! The soundstage is somethings else on these little boxes.

I agree the soundstage is stunning, probably as good as I have ever heard in a speaker. Magical little beasts!

[Lawrence001]

Coincidentally Ketan Bharadia has just done a write up of his view on the original(ish - Kef's 30th anniversary reissue) LS3/5A

https://www.whathifi.com/speakers/the-bbcs-50-year-old-ls3-5a-mini-monitor-shows-the-uneven-progress-of-modern-speaker-design

[Wakefield Turntables]

Coincidentally Ketan Bharadia has just done a write up of his view on the original(ish - Kef's 30th anniversary reissue) LS3/5A

https://www.whathifi.com/speakers/the-bbcs-50-year-old-ls3-5a-mini-monitor-shows-the-uneven-progress-of-modern-speaker-design

Thanks for that!

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A BLOG - Part IV - Even more Rainy Satrurday afternoon (Storm Amy) messing about.

It's been a long time since I posted anything. I've been selling stuff, re-evaluating stuff andf generally being a bit of a spend thrift with the hobby this year. I always wanted to try some LS3/5a's and after a lot of reading and messing around plumped for the Falcon iteration. I could not justify the stupid expense of the vintage models kicking around and why would buy 50 year old pair of speakers with similar age XO components which have probably drifted or speaker drivers which have probably seen better days. Why not buy something that's brand new and especially reconstructed with obsessive levels of detail. So, Falcon won and I paid a reasonable price. I didn't really need another pair of speakers, I own 6 pairs (and weirdly theyt are all British). I'm not about to start buggering about with XO tweeks or new 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% pure (list your own metal) purity binding posts. The remit is simple, basic tweaks and maximum fun whilst enjoying a classic BBC design. Yes these speakers have bug problems and limitations (very very well documented) but I don't care, I don't give a $#!t !!!!


So far I have been through two designs of speaker stands and three lots of speaker cable. I have dismissed Duelund speaker cable and some Nordost SPM that I had sitting around, both of these will be going up for sale shortly. Presently I'm using some 2mm solid core copper cables that I have on loan. Speaker position is next on my list of tweaks and TBH I don't think that I'm that far off. Speaker stand design for the Ls3/5a is a bit weird with some folks suggesting bulk/mass whilst other open frame, so I suppose it's whatever sounds better in my room. Originally I had a pair of speaker stands made up for my JR149 speakers, these have been modded and now look something like this...


https://audioaddicts.freeforums.net/thread/1251/rexblog?page=21&scrollTo=101457https://i.ibb.co/cK2kLxgV/IMG-2133.jpg


Large birch ply base, some 2x4 and a 40mm bamboo top. The bamboo bit came from an old block I bought from IKEA that my 1210 TT used to sit on years ago before I went all posh and got a Townhsend seismic platform https://storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/insane.png . Yep they are bodged but it allows accurate speaker placement and to some extent I can bodge and experiment with the design. Speaker height sits at 60cm from the floor which is pretty much in agreement with what everyone states and to my ears sounds best for my room, so that much has been dialled in. Presently the LS3/5a's are driven by a pair of FOSI audio v3 monoblocks and they sound very very good indeed altough I've been told they can sound better with an amp with plenty of welly, that might be something I look into at some point. Lastly, speaker volume seems to play a part in getting the best from these speakers, there is a specific volume where they start to really sing, perhaps my dodgy old hearing !!??!!. Anyway here's a view of what I see when I listen to my LS3/5a's.


https://i.ibb.co/Zph1CCp1/IMG-2134.jpg


This is a slow blow project so don't expect anything too soon on this project... https://storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/rofl.png

[Jimbo]

Looking good Andy, I would love to hear those speakers again. They were the first speaker I heard when I started in hifi that stopped me in my tracks and started to make me curious about sound reproduction and their startling reproduction was something I never forgot.

I will be certainly following this thread.

[Macca]

I've always found them to be quite beguiling, even if they don't do the 'sturm und drang' thing.

[Wakefield Turntables]

I've always found them to be quite beguiling, even if they don't do the 'sturm und drang' thing.

Storm and stress, from a LS5/3a, that's a bit abstract Martin!! Are you calling them a bit pipe and slippers :)

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A BLOG - Part V - Measuring up!

The height of the speaker stands has been dialled in at 60cm exactly, no more and no less, sounds great. The distance betweem speakers has gone down from 1.7m to approx 1.4m and I may go down even further still. MONO recordings sounded great with the reduced speaker distance, more messing around over the next few days I guess. Classcial and Jazz have also sounded more cohesive with the reduced distance between the speakers rather than the muddled misplaced instrument placement that I previously experienced. Having fun and just messing around whilst enjoying these little speakers, it's also nice to learn their positive and negative points. Stay tuned....

[Alex_UK]

My first proper experience of hi-fi was my mate’s dad who had a pair of Rogers LS3/5a hooked up to a Rogers amp (not sure of the model, but it was solid state) fed by the Garrard 401\SME 3009 deck which he gave me some years later. That’s what hooked me into the crazy world of audio. Sadly, I suspect the speakers got tipped after he passed away.

[Macca]

Storm and stress, from a LS5/3a, that's a bit abstract Martin!! Are you calling them a bit pipe and slippers :)

I think they have a frequency response that gives a pleasant balance to most music. I don't agree they do better with a powerful amp though. They won't take much power at all. Pal of mine wrecked the drivers on his cranking metal through them and he only had a 35 watt JVC amp. I mean, he shredded the mid bass units.

[Wakefield Turntables]

. Sadly, I suspect the speakers got tipped after he passed away.

oh no!


I think they have a frequency response that gives a pleasant balance to most music. I don't agree they do better with a powerful amp though. They won't take much power at all. Pal of mine wrecked the drivers on his cranking metal through them and he only had a 35 watt JVC amp. I mean, he shredded the mid bass units.

Aha! I see what you mean, also, good piece of advice regarding bigger amp, these little Fosi v3 monoblocks that I use could put 100W into those LS5/3a's with no problems.

[Barry]

I think they have a frequency response that gives a pleasant balance to most music. I don't agree they do better with a powerful amp though. They won't take much power at all. Pal of mine wrecked the drivers on his cranking metal through them and he only had a 35 watt JVC amp. I mean, he shredded the mid bass units.

According to the BBC Research Department RD 1967/29 "The design of the miniature monitoring loudspeaker type LS3/5A":

The maximum sound level for programme material such as heavily limited pop music depends on the duration of the peaks. For a one second burst of pure tone at 150 Hz, a maximum input of 25 volts is permitted corresponding to a peak sound level of +97 dB w.r.t. 2 x 10-5 N/m2 at 1.5 m. For a steady signal with a duration of 30 min the r.m.s. signal level causing the rated temperature of the voice coil to be reached is equivalent to a nominal input power of 30 watts, i.e. a sound level of +90.5 w.r.t. 2 x 10-5 N/m2 at 1.5 m allowing for the increased resistance of the voice coil due to the high temperature. For heavily limited pop music these limits correspond to a maximum sound level of +90 dB w.r.t. 2 x 10-5 N/m2.

I'm not sure what is meant by "heavily limited pop music", but 25V input corresponds to a peak power of 42W, and 97dB is very loud. However the long duration of the pure tone signals limits the input power to 30W, so I can believe your friend damaged his LS3/5A speakers (if not his hearing!).

The LS3/5A has a sensitivity of 82.5dB/W/m, so a level of 98dB requires a power input of 35.5W. If your friend was running his amp 'flat out' it would most likely clip at times, which would damage the speaker.

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A BLOG - Part V - Further Measuring up!


Looks like I have a decent set up with the LS3/5a's with respect to MONO recordings. The inter-speaker distance seems to be just about dialled in and I can say that I get some very nice MONO playback. The Stereo imaging at the moment seems a little too compressed for my liking but I'm getting there slowly but surely, presently, things sound a little too "shut-in" and compressed into too small a space to give anything resembling a stereo recording soundstage. So, I just keep playing vinyl (hard life) and shifting the distance bewteen the speakers a little further apart each time. I have had to the speakers too far apart and the soundstage just sounded very disjointed so I don't think I'm that far away. I might have a rummage through the spares box tomorrow as I have to have a little sort out and see if I have any speaker cables that I could use with them. I'm on my 3rd pair of speaker cables so far and have to say that the cheapest have sounded the best so far. The adventure continues, so, as ever, stay tuned......

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A BLOG - Part VI - Even Further Measuring up!


Well it's Sunday and the traffic on AOS is about as busy as B-Road in some extreme rural area of the Yorkshire Moors. The LS3/5a continue to delight me and will now never the collection of HI-FI kit that I own. I've messed around with positioning for several weeks no and I think that I have settled on two distances. The first distance is purely for MONO and to be honest this will only be for the occasional recording and for very specific music genre's as they do produce some music better than others. Finally distance number two will of course be for Stereo records. So, I guess there isn't much left to do with these speakers, but I think you might be wrong. I suppose I could mess around with different speaker stands but even then this is probably going to be quite limited. I could also mess around with isolation devices but this would mean having to rebuild a new pair of speaker stands to make sure that they sit at 60cm from the ground.

Well the final thing to mess around with is speaker cable. I have always been a cable sceptic and never really bought into the idea of spending a lot of money. My only concession is that I'm always happy listening to a system with a silver loom and indeed that's what's in my system's (or is it) !!??!! Well, no! Presently I've got speaker cables and IC's made from Cu. So, this is probably where an area of experimentation is needed but that's for another day. I have decided to experiment with some quite thick multistrand copper cables and pure silver WBT banana spades. My FOSI audio v3 MONO blocks are now well and truly burned in and producing some amazing sonics through the LS3/5a's and one of the benefits of these excellent little monoblocks is the ability to take bare wire, plugs, or banana spades, so in effect a tweakers dream. So this little experiment has a few more parts before we call it a day. The cost so far (apart from the speakers) for experimentation has been £0! So, as ever, stay tuned....

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A BLOG - Part VII - More free experimentation.

These little speakers continue to surprise me, they have long since "vanished" into the listening room when I'm listening to stuff and have proven a worthwhile addition to the collection. Today's meanderings have been based around the FOSI v3 Monoblocks which drive them Firstly I did intend to rewire these little amps with some silver going from the RCA binding posts onto the PCB but then I spotted some very very small resistors soldered very very close to where the copper wire is soldered onto the PCB, so that is one little mod that I won't be attempting!! I did wonder how a nice pair of Silver based IC'S might sound from the MONOBLOCKS into mt ATC SCA2 preamp so out came my Duelund "REALSOUND" IC's which I made up some years ago and in went a professionally made pair of Yannis Tome IC's (I think these were his top of the range at the time). I'm a cable sceptic and I have long since stopped being impressed or influenced by "claims" made by various individuals in the Hifi world. Well, the Yannis Tome IC's do indeed lift the sonics that I'm hearing (IN MY SYSTEM) so they will stay and I'm thankful for having an hour or two to mess around whilst it's raining up here in Yorkshire.

Out with the old "REAL SOUND" IC's and in with something even older (Yannis Tome).. :lol:


https://i.ibb.co/7mwQGXp/IMG-2158.jpg

There are still a couple more things that I'd like to try with the infrastructure powering the v3 MONOBLOCKS. Firstly I'd like to power both the 48V PSU's through the PS Audio P10 that I own to see if things change in any way, I'm presently running them through the Olson power block which had a LED and a filter, so, things could be a little constrained. I've tried a few different power products with my system at my present house and have always felt that these products have robbed some of the musicality and compressed the soundstage, maybe this could be next week's folly?
I still haven't organised the experiment the slightly thicker multistrand copper and the WBT pure silver spade connectors. Speaker placement is still an ongoing journey, I'm now down to just moving things around a centimeter at a time to dial in the best possible position. Finally speaker stands are another area that I've not tried either. I was thing about buying a pair of metal stands and then filling with sand, this goes on with me trying to source a pair locally from eBay, I think patience is needed. Finally a quick photo of present speaker position, slightly closed together but no further brought forward.

https://i.ibb.co/jPMp1qZ1/IMG-2157.jpg

Stay tuned!!!

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A BLOG - Part VIII - Even more free experimentation.


The nights are drawing in and it's time to play around with the LS3/5a's. I've still not done all the mini experiments that I wanted to try over the weekend but one thing is for sure and that's the need for another pair of Yannis Tome IC's for this system. Thing's really did sound a lot better with the Yannis Tome IC's. I've still not played around with the thicker speaker cable and WBT spade connectors, maybe another weekend experiment? It's getting cold in the garage so I want to get everything sorted out before the temperature drops a few more degrees. I'll probably try the experiment with the Fosi V3 MONO blocks powered with the P10, see if I can hear any differences. This is another free bit of experimentation which may or may not yield some positive improvement. I've now finished messing around with speaker placement and have decided on two distances which work really well, one for MONO recordings and the other for Stereo so that's one area of tweaking that's been perfected (well at least for this listening room). I have a quite week next week so I hope to do another update. Stay tuned.....

[Barry]

I'm surprised you have to change the placement of these speakers depending on whether you listen to mono playback or stereo playback. It would drive me potty if I had to do that with my speakers (not that I have that many mono recordings).

[Wakefield Turntables]

I'm surprised you have to change the placement of these speakers depending on whether you listen to mono playback or stereo playback. It would drive me potty if I had to do that with my speakers (not that I have that many mono recordings).

Stricty speaking I don't have to change position. I've been listening to these speakers A LOT since buying them and I'm learning how they perform, I tend to get very OCD and really like to understand everything about I subject that I study. I made the observation that MONO recordings sound better with a slight different position, it's probably a quirk of this room. It's all good fun at the end of the day. I'll be messing around later tonight.

[Wakefield Turntables]

LS3/5A BLOG - Part IX - Garage comes to rescue again.

Years ago I made some power leads with 3mm pure silver solid core and then decided to leave them in a attic and then a garage for over a decade. The LS3/5A blog has always had an eye on being as tight as possible so I spied an oppotunity to save some money and skip a lot of messing around and just pure silver speaker cables :eek:. So, with a spare hour I made some speaker cables.

https://i.ibb.co/GQPrByyg/IMG-2171.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/tRwHzXL/IMG-2170.jpg

I had been running my FOSI v3 Monoblocks through a OLSON powerstrip but always wondered if this might have an impact on the little amplifiers so I decided to ditch the Olson powerstrip and run then straight through the PS Audio P10. It is of course going to be difficult to tell if which of these experiments has produced the improved sonics that I'm hearing. I always prefer a slightly brighter presentation and that's what I'm hearing
today as I listen to Soft Machine. Overall I'm happy with the way that these are sounding. I'm now on the look out for a pair of heavy mass 60cm speaker stands to come up for sale locally on eBay. Some say open frame stands are the best whilst other go for heavy mass, that's a debate and update for another time. Stay tuned......