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.
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 ;-)
Hifi-Selbstbau - LS3/5a Battle des DIY-HiFi-Forums bei Blue Planet Acoustic
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 ;-)
Hifi-Selbstbau - LS3/5a Battle des DIY-HiFi-Forums bei Blue Planet Acoustic
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 ;-)
Hifi-Selbstbau - LS3/5a Battle des DIY-HiFi-Forums bei Blue Planet Acoustic
Interesting that Falcon Acoustics did well but don't measure that great.
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.
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.
Last edited:
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.
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.
I got the impression Dynaudio was sold to Chinese. There is an announcement on their Facebook account. I see LYD5 professional product deploys a 5" midwoofer crossed over at 5.2 kHz to a tweeter. This used to be around 2kHz back in the old days. Oh well.
GoerTek Acquires the Majority Shares of Dynaudio | audioXpress
GoerTek Acquires the Majority Shares of Dynaudio | audioXpress
Last edited:
I was doing some sims of 5" plus 3/4" tweeter today.
Bit like this Harbeth P3ESR, which is in the BBC tradition:
This is the 11 ohm BBC LS3/5A circuit:
Well look at this homage, The Monacor LS5/19, using a Monacor SPH-145HQ and the DT-19SU:
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.
Bit like this Harbeth P3ESR, which is in the BBC tradition:
This is the 11 ohm BBC LS3/5A circuit:
Well look at this homage, The Monacor LS5/19, using a Monacor SPH-145HQ and the DT-19SU:
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.
These are my current daily listeners and Im really enjoying them. The B110 can sound surprisingly good even with all its faults
JR149 Redesign
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).
Attachments
Last edited:
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.
What about sonic differences from old ones from around 1980 against Falcon's remake from 2015 ?
Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a loudspeaker | Stereophile.com
Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a loudspeaker | Stereophile.com