BBC LS3/5a Original v DIY clones

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#81
limono said:
Graham will not supply any spares and they repair blown woofers. With all the concept and project being pretty much open source it would be suicidal business wise to supply parts.
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It would only be suicidal if they supplied in bulk.

Arguably for someone in the US it's nonsensical to have to ship your speakers or drivers all the way back to the UK for repair... surely easier to send you the drivers to replace.

With a little bit of persuasion, perhaps they might send 1 pair only.. A studio for example can't afford to have monitors out of service so asking for one pair of spares might be possible with some convincing you run a studio.

Anyway, it is common for companies to be a bit nonsensical for these reasons of fear of loss of business, you're right.
 
#82
I tried to buy a replacement driver from Graham. The answer from US rep was that they repair the drivers. They may supply spare drivers to legitimate studios but I think they have policy of replacing the driver if you supply the blown one.
 
#85
We had a nice DIY-"battle" in 2018, it was all about LS3/5-clones.

In our ears, some clones turned out to better than the original ones. It was great fun to see that the BBC-principles worked very well. The clones sounded "bigger" than expected ;-)

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Hifi-Selbstbau - LS3/5a Battle des DIY-HiFi-Forums bei Blue Planet Acoustic
 
#86
#87
Charles Darwin said:
Dynaudio did the same thing when they stopped supplying the diy market: Replace or fix but you have to send the dead driver in.They also doubled the price overnight.
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Focal did the same after awhile, and both of those companies were sold to Chinese years later. The automotive industry could not help them stay in business. You see what happens when you have no love for DIYers. 😀
 
#88
fatmarley said:
Interesting that Falcon Acoustics did well but don't measure that great.
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By what standard? I'm on my laptop at present so can't access my records, but if fallible memory serves, the response appears to be pretty much in line with, er, an LS3/5a. Which is what it is, and what it's supposed to be, and had a response balance optimised for use in a particular role.

Messing about with little sealed 2-way boxes of the same dimensions as the LS3/5[a] is all well and good, and no doubt some will technically outperform it in some situations (and possibly all: the B110 and T27 are not especially distinguished drivers as of 2020), but that does not make them an LS3/5a since few if any will have been designed to the same criteria. Falcon apart, they don't even use the same drivers, so whatever they might like to call themselves, 'clones' they are not. What they are are small 2-way loudspeakers, simple-as. Ergo, particularly if the on / off axis response, polars, &c. differ significantly between the speakers, all you are doing by comparing them is deciding that, in one particular situation (which may not be what all, or any were designed for), a given set of response criteria are favoured over others. Interesting in the abstract, but not exactly profound in terms of revelations. 😉
 
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#89
Lojzek said:
Focal did the same after awhile, and both of those companies were sold to Chinese years later. The automotive industry could not help them stay in business. You see what happens when you have no love for DIYers. 😀
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When was Dynaudio sold to the Chinese?

As far as I was aware TC Group bought Dynaudio and in turn TC Group was later purchased by Uli Behringer at which point Dynaudio was spun off and is now on its own again headquartered in Denmark.

The removal from the diy market and the price doubling happened when TC Group took over without any chinese involvement at that point in time.
 
#93
I was doing some sims of 5" plus 3/4" tweeter today.

Bit like this Harbeth P3ESR, which is in the BBC tradition:

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This is the 11 ohm BBC LS3/5A circuit:

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Well look at this homage, The Monacor LS5/19, using a Monacor SPH-145HQ and the DT-19SU:

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The LS3/5A was negative polarity with a recessed woofer, though KEF did the CS1A in positive polarity. I got it working pretty well in BW3 on negative polarity. The LCR trap on the woofer does remarkable things in getting steep rolloff and a notch around 1.3kHz with a high inductance woofer, which is what I think the B110 was.

I don't think I'd waste time on those ancient drivers, but a good clone might use something very close to the original 11 ohm circuit. And a taller box, I think.
 
#95
fatmarley said:
Er, all the LS3/5a I've seen measured by Stereophile measure differently.
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Ones in Stereophile could well be out of spec due to age... but my Hifi Choice Loudspeakers review book from 1976 also shows some differences between Audiomaster and Chartwell LS3/5as.

In the review, they like to talk about objective frequencies rather than their emotions towards certain tracks, like they do today... Those were the days!

Here are scans from the relevent pages. Also a scan from a later 1979 review of the Rogers version when chartwell and Rogers were apparently made at the same factory . (My scanner software automatically split the first scan into two pages, but not the others).
 

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#96
limono said:
Kef LS50 was heavily pushed on the market by used car salesmen type of campaign, but shortly after the mass hysteria, a used examples flooded the selling sites. To me, it's simply a bad speaker on the level of cheap ELAC atrocities. An old audio dealer I know was apoplectic by the fact that dozens of people called his little shop and occupied hours of his time trying to make up their mind about buying $200 speakers...
To me, a "high tech " looking transducer in the box is the clear sign to steer away .
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Totally agree with this. The LS50 will not have the longevity of the LS3/5A thats for sure, its good but an average sounding speaker overall IMO.
 
#97
billshurv said:
Ok I was doubly wrong. Falcon did a limited edition last years of 50 pairs to original BBC specs (first pairs were modified LS3/5 cabinets apparantly). Blog No. 14: An LS3/5a For the Ages Nearly £7k a pair!


I found the 'shootout' I mentioned as well LS3/5A HiFi News Shootout which is both interesting and perturbing as to the levels audiophiles will go to. I am not sure I could stay sane listening to 11 almost identical pairs of speakers and putting them in order.
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Thanks interesting article
 
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