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In Reply to: RE: A Question for Reviewers who Own LS3/5As posted by the old school on May 23, 2012 at 21:36:51
It may be that they are just super sensitive to positioning.
I have had to revisit a bunch of speakers that I have disliked because in most cases they were connected to high feedback SS amplifiers (which basically writes off any and all hope of it producing sound that I would pay for). The horrible sound may indeed merely have been the speakers tell me how horrible HNF amps are. While the speakers I liked better may have been softening those amps up a but.
I discovered that on the AN K/Spe - Listening to Audyssey, Bryston, Rotel -- eesh - had I heard the speakers with those amps first I would think the speaker a pile of poo. Fortunately, I heard the speaker with amplifiers that don't ruin music.
My harsher stance on panel speakers have been changed over the years with tube amplifiers and it seems the better makers King Sound and Sound Labs and Martin Logan all brought tube amps to demonstrate.
Still I'd like to compare the LS3/5a and AB1 against Audio Note's AX Two. The latter is $700 is 90db sensitive and around 50hz in room. It's been my budget champ for about 6 years - and when I heard them again in Hong Kong - I bought them. No of course they're not full range and you can't play big music at big levels - but for their size and weight class and kept at sane levels - I think they'll give most a run for their money.
Gotta compare apples to apples. The LS3/5a is made for small rooms with limited low frequency response. Can't compare them to full range beasties.
Follow Ups:
The LS 3/5's are not high end IMO: no deep bass, a mid bass hump, and inefficient to boot!!! The Spicas beat the 3/5 in JA's measurements: flatter frequency response, no mid-bass hump, and more efficient. Yes, and time-coeherent. And yet, JA continues to use these severely flawed, over-priced British speakers as his reference!
Even JA's measurements of the AR 303 (an updated AR 3a) are superior to the 3/5: +- 3 dB from 22 Hz to 11,000Hz. I lived with an AR 3 with a RTR electrostatic tweeter for a decade. A very happy decade!
Well if true that JA is using a lesser measuring speaker over a better measuring speaker then there is hope for JA yet :-)
Measurements only mean something as the sound goes into yourear canal - doesn't matter what it is doing at the other end of a room at 1 meter if you are 3-4 meters away.
I just finished one raging debate about measurements on another forum - and all themeasurements that are taken are woefully lacking. Even if speakermeasurements today could account for 97% of everything that last 3% "magic" or "voodoo" factor remains pivotal.
It is the difference between sopmething sounding like music in a way that draws you to want to listen and a system that istechnically superb that makes you want to shut the thing off andwatch TV.
I brought a whole bunch of music to listen to the famed $20k ATC SCM 150 loudspeakers - accurate as all get out - I could hear a pin drop with them. They didn't sound bright or etchy - they sounded nearly flawless.
Yet I brought my same albums over to listen to the AN AX Two ($700) on Jinro(power amp) wit maybe the M9 preamp and CD 4.1 and it brought meto choke back tears.
In every technical way the ATC destroys the AX Two - it is more accurate it has far deeper bass, more treble extension - can dissect discs like any good pro monitor should. It's a great loudspeaker no question about that.
But the fact remains that the SET amps with inexpensive undamped (AN E mini-me speakers) gave the goosebumps.
The LS3/5a has been around too long and loved by too many to be pile of junk. There has to be some merit to them even if they don't have much bass. Perhaps it gives up accuracy for the emotion - or perhaps it has a boost in the upper mids to give a sense of presence.
Also, from my reading up on them there are numerous versions of the speakers - some good some great and some pretty terrible. They don't even use the same drivers or cabinet materials. Also, from my readings some of the newer versions apparently sound a lot better than the original Rogers versions.
The speakers I tend not to love are the ones where at the end of a review JA makes a comment along the lines of "these have impressive measured results" - Usually the oens I have heard where he says that are the ones I want to shut off after 15 minutes.
Even the ATC 150 ad good as I think it is - the dealer in Hong Kong who demos Melody, Rogua Audio,Almarro, Line Magnetic on them - hooked up some Zu Audio Essence speakers for 1/4 the money. The Essence does a lot of things that sound more right in the midrange. (for that matter so did the $3500 model).
The Essence is a really nice sounding speaker for $5k. I would want them further back - and something at the frequency extremes were not quite right - but the amp was a KT88 which can sometimes sound unrelenting.
Anyway - I have decided to review a newer LS3/5a and AB1 and should get them in fairly soon. They seemvery popular in Hong Kong - I suspect due to the very small apartments here. So I will be able to test them in room sizes that they were meant for (similar to the BBC recording studios no doubt).
The low sensitivity is somewhat of a concern but their high impedence should make them very easy to drive in terms of load. We shall hear.
I have heard several SET based systems, and they all sounded very musical (i.e., pleasant). The 3/5 will make many CDs sound "pleasant" or at least tolerable. It all depends on what audio camp you belong to: the "sounds good" camp or the "absolute sound" camp. I belong to the absolute sound camp, but I do have a "sounds good" set of equipment (using Fulton J speakers instead of the Dunlavy SCIVs, and using the Mystere CA21 preamp instead of the Audio Research SP8).
"The 3/5 will make many CDs sound "pleasant" or at least tolerable."
Although I agree with this comment isn't it paradoxal that the speaker was born as a recording monitor designed to flag any distortion while broadcasting?
That's where the sharp treble came from... As a warning sign that the broadcasting was coming in too hot.
Yet the somewhat plush midrange now makes it a "comfort" speaker. I think it says a lot about the evolution of recordings and where we have gained or lost. The BBC from the 70s worried about distorted treble, with CD we have to fluff up the midrange...
The 3/5 are anything but flat in the treble. Why anyone loves these highly colored, inefficient speakers is a big puzzle. Some just love evereything English (and detest everything from the US).
the puzzle may exist only in your mind. are you not, perhaps, being a tad limited in your look at who might enjoy this speaker? a little bit of self reflection goes a long way.
I've compared 3/5 speakers in blind listening tests, and consistently rate them at the bottom. NO ONE has put the 3/5s at the top of our blind tests. The combination of low efficiency and over-emphasized mid bass with NO deep bass doesn't impress me in the slightest.
The term absolute sound is meaningless drivel. Which was probably coined by a magazine...
Sounds good is the only thing that actually matters. The alternative to sounding good is sounding like shite. And Shite may be the "absolute sound" but it's not what I want to spend money on.
Bright, hard, fatiguing treble and bass SLAM somewhere along the way became the "absolute sound" and "accurate."
No speaker is accurate - being bright or having bass slam may seem like it is giving more of the recording - if it is brighter it must be presenting more information - which is is - whether it's from the recording is another matter.
Don't be so defensive about being in the "sounds good" camp. Many reviewers agree (AD being the main one). I, and several others, HP and JV and JGH being the chief ones, think truth to live acoustic music should be the goal of the high end. First, progress in ever higher audio quality demands that we keep our ears on the goal. Look at the progress in digital sound. Early digital
was pure crap, and fell far short of analogue sound. Those who favored analogue (anyone with ears, IMO) refused to be seduced by the convenience of digital. The "measurements above all" camp finally were forced to admit that digital was inaccurate in ways that analogue was not (jitter and sampling rate limitations being two). Digital sound improved slowly, and recent breakthroughs have made high res digital much more accurate (true to live sound). Measurements have played a role in that improvement of digital. Second, with poor recordings (unfortunately many analogue records fall into this group; all but recent digital also belong in the poor recording group), audio equipment that makes these poor recordings pleasant sounding fail to sound as good with great recordings. When I am comparing audio systems, I use several of my best sounding vinyl records. Speakers with tipped up bass and rolled off treble may make crap CDs tolerable, but they DON"T sound best (OR most realistic) with the best recordings. I suspect that JA uses the 3/5 precisely because they make his digital sound pleasant. Accurate speakers reveal 99% of digital to be audio dreck. Most tube units perform a similar function. The best tube manufactures (Audio Research being the leader here) have tried to narrow the gape between the accuracy of ss in the very low and the very high end. I DO admit that SET amps sound more pleasant AND more realistic to my ears. However, more scientific research will reveal why SETs sound more true to live music. I suspect the absence of feedback and a simpler approach are two of the chief reasons why SETs sound more accurate.
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