Love your stuff, Kelvin. Watch every vid. I’m glad you did these. Here in the US, we didn’t hear much of these back in the day. Lately, we’ve been overrun by these on RU-vid in the last several months. They echo most of what you said, but you really got to the bottom of it all for me. Great job.
Kelvin Ray from Toronto I mentioned to say you taught me how to get pretty good sound for not alot of money and l listen to so many of you videos great stuff love amps and speakers cheers my friend
I had a pair i still have the tweeters and the circuit board. Didn't know they where that famous. I got them in great condition about 10 years ago or so. They where 50$. I loved their sound immaculate.
Oh Kelvin, after buying a pair of Rogers ls3/5a, I've tried them with a few amplifiers, I tried them finally with a Leben c600.. and wow, a match truly made in heaven. If you can beg, steal or borrow a Leben amplifier for a play please do, I would love to hear/see your opinion.
Minature village is a good way to describe general vintage British speaker's sonics. It's the feeling of everything in control... You are the lord and surveyor of the manor. Made for smaller spaces to make you feel big. American sound is more adventurous, open prairies, massive mountains, etc. Priorities are excitement and body movement. Hifi, at various eras, reflects cultural character quite well! Like the auto industry. There is merit in all. It's great to have diversity.
Have Ditton 10s/goodmans maxims & goodmans ls3/5a. All acquired in the early 70s & for the life of me....can’t decide which ones i prefer. As a jazz/acoustic & vocal listener they all just do the job. Love them all!
@@dittonworks amazes me why so many folk are a little bit scared of 15 ohm speakers. Sure they sound great with valves but...in the past I’ve run them all with a NAD 3020 & they sound superb!
Yes there seems to be a high anxiety about ohms these days someone is drumming it up somehow. If I’m putting on one pair of speakers I don’t think about it at all never have
Saving up for a pair! I really value true-to-life midrange, and for that reason, I cherish my vintage AKG K240 Sextett headphones. Hope these speakers will do it for me. Thanks so much for your knowledge and sense of calm. :)
I have a pair . Very tasty and great bass in my opinion. I have them as a spare bedroom system on a chest of drawers close to the wall and I can hear the bass through my modest abode quite well. Everyone in this hobby should check em out at least once:)
Hi Kelvin love your show I. In Toronto Canada 🇨🇦 and you taught me a lot about not spending alot of money I love speakers and been thinking about these Roger's your amazing at this keep it up Ray a
Hi Ray let me just say much as I love the speakers and I do Don’t forget the speakers are generally small-scale I say this because some people will find that disappointing a lot of people I would say these are kind of purist speakers Good for fusspots like me Cheers K
I have a pair of Spendor SP9/1's that I'm afraid to part with for this reason - they don't do anything seriously wrong. I've owned them for over twenty years. I thoroughly enjoy your channel - I hope you haven't given up on us.
Enjoyed this. I still use my Linn Tukans after 21 years because they exhibit similar characteristics expressed here in respect of the Rogers monitors. The Tukans might go one better with surprising ability to go deep, and present an expansive sounds stage. For quite a bit I less money back in the day, I might add. Great work Kelvin .
Hi Kelvin and all. Have you heard KEF Cantatas'? They use the B110 as a mid driver with the T52 tweeter in a small enclosure which is inside a large cabinet with the B139. Love yer content. Thanks. John.
Really appreciate this honest review of the Rogers Ls35a. Only last year I got into vintage audio sound and this channel has guided me well in taking my first steps. I'm now mixing vintage and modern audio equipment, which to me combines the best of both worlds. Any thoughts on how the Rogers compare to Avi Neutron small/monitor speakers - I have the v4's. AVI was a great British audio brand that received many accolades in their short life.
I do love the concept, and I love even more how the design has NEVER been deviated from! I may try the clones made by chi-fi brand Sound Artist, price is extremely competitive and have heard good things.
Clones are not always good. Typical examples are the Yamaha NS-10 clones or clones to the original Auratone 5C. Even the remakes from the "same" brand may not be good.
Recently found, appreciate the candor. Could you compare Rogers LS with vintage Harbeths. Use a wide range of Sansui MOS FETS 907Ltd, B2302, 607i with Meridian CD units. Much appreciated
Regarding the detail in older ls35a I recently had to change 2 resistors in 15ohm Rogers ..they had drifted well out of spec and it returned detail to expected levels (NVA ,exposure and quad used as power amps)
Ive got a way of analogising them.. if it helps!... I have a pair on my desktop and one day when we were working away my wife said 'put some Abba on' (she was tiring of Porcupine tree!!). So I played Abba.. sat smack in the middle at very close quarters - and I heard literally everything, every harmony - just everything like never before (and I have had a lot of speakers). I even felt like I had exposed the decisions behind how the vocals were planned to come in with some impact a layer at a time... like I could picture it happening in the studio.. It was all laid bare! I now call these a pair of 'Music Deconstruction Machines'... Try it, it's bloody brilliant!
@@stereoreviewx I've also got a pair of battered BC1s that I am rather fond of.. I want to try them with a valve amp now that I have seen your video about valve vs. transistor. Best thing I can do is is stop watching this channel and then spend less! But realistically that is unlikely to happen!
They need to be against the wall. Wonderful for voices such as Diane Krall or Dave Brubeck’s Take Five. As can be said about the very different sounding Linn Kans, they give you a small but perfect widow into the music.
I do suggest you to recap your vintage one, all the capacitors of crossover may be dry out, you will surprise they will back to sweet and lovely again...
Maybe is the operative word! All my 60s monitor speakers are in spec & sounding great. Worse thing for vintage gear is to leave it in some garage unused.
I suspect a lot of the difference between old and new is down to the old ones getting a bit softer with age. At least, that is borne out by my experience: I have a 70s pair, and although they were still sounding great I had them recapped and the internal wiring replaced this year and the result is similar- more detail in the mid range, and better instrument separation. Lovely things, although happily, not to everybody's taste or there wouldn't be enough of them to go around!
Hi Kelvin. How do these compare to the ATC SCM20 if you are familiar with them. I never heard of them but I saw a pair in an auction and they looked interesting, so I faved them. When I looked today the bidding was up to 1600 euro's (1400 pound) already and not meeting the reserve price yet (I missed there was a reserve) So I figure they must be something special. Oh and I forgot to mention. They are also still making them and they are studio speakers, so I saw some similarities with the LS35a
£2500 - wow I got a pair of the round ones for £35 at an auction. Rogers valve amp for £200 and a Dual direct drive t/t for £100. All good for playing the old records I find.
Total respect, love listening to Kelvin and his lovely artistic communicatinon way to describe thus Hifi components and their individual sounds. Fantantic! Ooh just wondering if any Solovox Speakers have been describe/reviewed ?
the content just keeps getting better. i really enjoyed this one. If i might advice, change out the old broken B110's for the Falcon Acoustics reproduction. This will make them as good as new.
I owned a pair of LS3/5As for some years and liked them very much... that is until I heard KEF Ref 101s, a similar small speaker using the same two drive units but with a larger magnet on the woofer. Hands down I prefer the KEF 101 in every way especially the bass which is tighter and more extended.
I own two pairs and totally agree with you. Also I have done the tweeter mods that Kef recommended to us back in the day. Remove the paint from the dome and change the cigarette styled filter under the dome with a light packed mineral wool. They come alive. Also bypass the S-stop.
I have the Harbeth HL-P3. I am stupified by how preternaturally it reproduces the human voice. It was designed to perform the same function as the BBC variant. Have you heard it?
I'm that careful with my speakers not to scratch them even on the base . My friend came around one day and put his finished cup of tea in my speakers, and my face must have told a story because he hasn't come around in a while lol
Ideally they should be against the wal in a equilateral triangle you shouldn't see the side of the speakers just face on to you that's how they would have been set up in the beginning four or five feet away. Have you tried connecting subwoofers with them should work well. How much new Rogers sale for how much did you pay for them
Hi John I’ve got to say I have an instinctive aversion to subwoofers only because it introduces a different cone and sound so probably I should try it again. Now I’m a bargain hunter so I bought those speakers I think for 550 about six years ago something like that K
I've been watching your channel for a few months now. Love it. Some great insights into long forgotten hifi. Re: Ls3/5a You mention positioning 6 to 7 feet away from the listening position. What about the distance between the speakers. Also would having the speakers against a rear wall be preferable to having them out in free air. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Well I would have an hour on stands walls bounce sound around do you know And I would say 6 foot apart maybe seven and 67 foot away from you just like her equilateral triangle a lot of people won’t pull them close enough I just don’t get it but it works
Great vid Kelvin. However they do plenty wrong if you like rock music. I had a pair for a few months and Zeppelin never sounded so gutless. They are the top half of a great speaker, but the bass went missing.
I had a pair in black ash in the mid 80s, powered by a Krell KSA-50 power amp and a Hafler DH-110 preamp. They were a little power hungry but the Krell had the current to keep them happy.
I've read elsewhere, in an interview with the engineer/designer of Leben Hifi, one of the iconic tube amp brands, that these little speakers are greatly desired in Japan, where audiophiles often live in small flats, a bit comparable to living in a truck, I guess...
For once I’m at a loss for words the tannoys don’t really go into that category of Rogers and Spender though I mean ultimately most Tannoys with their jewel concentric cone that it has a unique sound of its own
Hi, I picked uo a pair of mint Rogers LS6/a today for £150 pair. Too big an probably won't keep them. great moment to finally have a pair of Rogers before I commit to something else......
I have a pair of Monitor Audio R 352 MD which are in perfect condition & I had them given to me for £0.. did I have a good deal.. I think I did because I love them .. Paul
That’s an interesting point to which I don’t know the answer I know the original ones the BBC received a something like 10% commission literally don’t know if that is happening today
@@stereoreviewx I wondered whether Rogers needed to renew the patent, given the surge in interest in the speaker and the fact that there are Chinese copies/homages starting to appear on the market. I have to say, in light of your review, I'm gong to have to get hold of a pair of these sooner or later. We work with a lot of BBC material from the 1960s and 70s, most if not all of which would have been originally recorded with these.
There is no way I would pay as much for a secondhand pair as for a new pair of the same model and quality of speaker, unless there was some particularly important historical significance attached to specific sets of speakers of that type, such as being the earliest examples of those models, or having been owned and used by well known celebrities, like Kelvin etc.
I know this is a huge audiophile no no but have you ever integrated a sub using smaller speakers like that. I had a pair of B&W 600 S3 and experimented with a 10-in sub had very nice results. Anyway just wondering if you've ever experimented with that? love your channel.
@@justinparkman3585 A very good friend of mine worked for Rogers back in the 70s. The design remit for the LS3/5a was as primarily a vocal monitoring system for BBC broadcasts. The music thing was secondary. Room size did come into it but seeing that vocal info can be played quite loud as there is very little low bass, it wasn't that much of a problem. A definite horses for courses scenario. There were always the Rogers LS5/9, LS7t and the revered Studio 1's, if you wanted to "rock out" in a larger space.
The filter has an enormous amount of cheesy parts. Cement resistors, iron core indicators, el cheapo caps. All to finally even out the frequency range. To each his own ofcourse. A good modern filter would not fit in the cabinet. Check the GR research review. These were made for de BBC broadcasting van. So put them in the closed bus only.
@@stereoreviewx Touché! Seriously, I have nothing against British equipment. Just making an observation. This is probably also true about us Americans as well.
The use of computers would prevent a design l like this in all likelihood. These are like a Stradivarius. Very good violins may not sound the same. PJC of Wharfedale uses the computer to get the basic design. He then tweaks it. That seems ideal.
I understand that this speaker was designed for near field monitoring in a van. Is it possible to use them as primary speakers in a regular listening space? I have read the midrange is sublime, but is there anything else?
Used a pair in our edit suite for years, small room about 8x10 feet, pure reproduction mostly voice and background sound, the speakers were so good that you rarely had to use headphones , but the speakers were very close, if you stood up you could almost reach over the desk and touch them.
I used to sell hifi back in the 70's. Too much hype. 90% of the customers werent that anal about it. They just wanted decent music at a reasonable cost
