LS3/5a

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sbrads

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Joined 2005
DrBoar said:
I heard them back in the 80s but prefered the KEF 101 and the B&W DM5. While not bad they are overrated cult speakers. Ken Kessler (HFN&RR) used LS3/5A to evaluate the bass of various amplifiers! Shear lunacy...

The were made for a specific purpose at BBC and I am sure that they were good at that, but it does not follow that they were good domestic HiFi speakers.
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Funnily enough, I heard Ken Kessler's LS3/5A setup in about 1981 in a (his?) hifi shop demo by appointment in Canterbury UK when I was looking for the best sounding turntable to buy. His setup was a Pink Triangle turntable and I can't remember the rest but the sound was so 3D and clear, better than anything else I had heard at the time, at least until a little later when I heard stacked Quad electrostatics working superbly with real pin-sharp tuneful bass, something the LS3/5As just couldn't even attempt.

I think the idea behind the BBC monitors was that they worked well above 100Hz, and were tonally balanced good enough that you didn't notice the lack of deep bass.
 
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ms08

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Joined 2011
but the sound was so 3D and clear, better than anything else I had heard at the time,
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I think that was one of the open qualities about the Pink Triangle which strangely enough is what I am using now. Oddly enough my BC1's came from Canterbury Hi-Fi which is also close to where I now live. Ken Kessler is friends with AK of the Funk Firm who originally designed and produced the Pink.
 
speaker dave

speaker dave

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Joined 2009
sbrads said:
I think the idea behind the BBC monitors was that they worked well above 100Hz, and were tonally balanced good enough that you didn't notice the lack of deep bass.
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They were generally used in remote locations in what they called "OB" vans (outside broadcast). I was told that the primary objective was to listen and judge quality of voice for radio program (is the mic at the right distance, is it too chesty, are we picking up room resonances, etc.). For these reasons then, natural vocal reproduction was the key attribute.

If they had more room or were mixing music then the larger monitors would generally be used.

I personally think all the BBC monitors are superior systems. The 3/5a was small enough and cheap enough that consumers locked onto it. I would like to find myself a pair of 5/9s.

David S.
 
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sbrads

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Joined 2005
Inductor said:
sbrads,
Please describe your vinyl turntable/arm then and now, interesting.:mischiev:
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For some reason at the time, I just couldn't force myself to buy this 'new fangled' fairly unknown Pink Triangle and succumbed to the general consensus then that the Linn Sondek/Ittok/moving coil cartridge was the way to go. The original cartridge was an Osawa OS-60L which I changed some years later for an Audio Technica AT-5 which was brighter, leaner and tighter and suited my tastes better, I don't like smooooth.

The Linn wasn't as good as the PT at the time looking back on that period, but this was pre-Valhalla which I had added as an upgrade soon after buying the Linn. That mod made a huge improvement to the sound, took it to another level really. Also, one little HiFi News mod to the bearing support got it to where I wanted it sound quality-wise. I've still got it all now and it sounds great still. I stopped upgrading when I went to CD and spent a while getting that to sound like the turntable! Further source upgrades will require something to die first.
 
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