[rhodkin]

Hey, I recently was listening to a bunch of various world renown BBC LS3/5A speakers and, while they sounded great, it made me wonder why people would be so interested in them, rather than a pair of say, brand new PMC TB2s?

[Letitroll98]

Personally I see very little to recommend the LS3/5A other than nostalgia.  It was an excellent studio monitor in the 70's, but even with the numerous revisions it hasn't kept pace with the times.  It's priced at $1000 or more now and although I haven't compared them, it's prolly bested by the $99 Pioneer SP-BS41.

[rhodkin]

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

I have several pairs of Rogers and Spendors that I'm selling and there's just tons of people enquiring about them from all over the place! There's definitely a feeling of solid British Sound Engineering when you're handling and listening to them. I think maybe I'm just too young and into the iPod generation to really appreciate them.

[*Scotty*]

The LS3/5A was designed to be a very good near field monitor for the BBC and it was built to their specs including the response curve. They would be very good sounding computer speakers if driven by the little amplifiers that are available to drive un-powered speakers used in these applications. They were originally intended to be listened to in the near field, 3ft. or less distance inside a BBC mobile sound truck on location.
Scotty

[srb]

Several manufacturers are building more modern updated versions of the LS3/5A that are designed with advanced drivers and crossovers and work much better in small room filling mid-field applications, including
 
Salk Sound / Jeff Bagby Continuum
 
and
 
Harbeth P3ESR
 
Steve

[rhodkin]

Makes sense. I can see them being nice in a close environment.

[cheap-Jack]

Hi.

Hey, I recently was listening to a bunch of various world renown BBC LS3/5A speakers and, while they sounded great, it made me wonder why people would be so interested in them, rather than a pair of say, brand new PMC TB2s?

Smaller the loudspeaker, when properly positioned, better would be the music IMAGING.
That means the size of the vocallist's mouth will be reproduced to appear like the performer's mouth size.
Or the oboe or flue will be produced to sound like their real size. WITHOUT any size overblown as contrary to so many loudspeakers of large panel size tend to reproduce the performers' mouth or instrument many many time larger than their real size.

That's why BBC LS3/5A type miniature loudspeakers which deliver the imaging so precisely that they outperform many many larger sized loudspeakers.

That said, its too small size often fails to deliver sub-sonic bass effectively, particularly for large room. Surely no good for today's home theatre movies, or rock music or church pipe organ music.

Active subwoofers will be needed to make up what such BBC miniature monitors's shy shy bass performance.

c-J     

[JLM]

My first serious speakers (1976) were LS3/5A clones with 6 cu. ft. DIY woofers added (Fried Model M).  I was shopping for completely different speakers (like JBL L300's) when the saleman had me try these.  WoW!!  They imaged so well I couldn't "find" them without walking up to them.  The transmission line bass was "natural" (versus exagerated or boomy).  It set my head spinning and couldn't stop thinking about them, in fact I still own a pair of Fried's and my main rig includes single driver transmission line speakers (trying the purist version of what I heard all those years ago).

[Letitroll98]

Hi.
Smaller the loudspeaker, when properly positioned, better would be the music IMAGING.
That means the size of the vocallist's mouth will be reproduced to appear like the performer's mouth size.
Or the oboe or flue will be produced to sound like their real size. WITHOUT any size overblown as contrary to so many loudspeakers of large panel size tend to reproduce the performers' mouth or instrument many many time larger than their real size.

That's why BBC LS3/5A type miniature loudspeakers which deliver the imaging so precisely that they outperform many many larger sized loudspeakers.

I agree and would add that's why they don't sound as good with larger scale instruments like piano or larger ensembles like orchestras.  Speakers are the ultimate lesson on give and take.