History of the LS3/5a video

Interesting for fans (like me):

 

What a fascinating little film, thank you.

 

They are the ultimate cult speaker. How many other speakers have clubs? I still want a pair of Chartwell LS35as

 

I've had a pair for years, the ultimate office speaker, and an interesting one also, wish all my purchases had been so wise.

 

Haven't heard LS3/5As in decades ... would love to hear the current Falcon iteration, which seems to be well-liked.

To me, along with the Quad 57s, the quintessential British speaker: compact, modest, but articulate and effective. Don't know about 'polite' - they are monitors, after all.

 

Thanks OP for the tip. Just watching it now and listening through my Harbeth LS3/5As that I picked up a couple of years ago for only £150. This is a really interesting video for anyone interested in vintage audio and is well worth a look, even for non-LS3/5A fans. I have other speakers too, as you'll see from my profile, but the Harbeths are my goto speaker for certain program material. Nothing beats them for realism on spoken word recordings.

 

I've got a pair of Chartwell's that I bought new back in 1978 from Pro Musica in Urbana, IL. I currently use them as my rear channel speakers in my multi-channel setup.

 

Same here, Chartwells in 1979. Sure learned a lot from Ray & Steve.

 

I'm just stuck in a speaker time warp, Rogers ls35a at the office, Spica tc-50 and Vandersteen 1's at home, I get jealous (not really) looking at all the newer stuff that folks have, but then I go listen...smoooove.... What does fatiguing mean? Sure it ain't all the music but dang it's a lot of it.

 

I sure would love to know what happened to Steve and Ray. Ray designed an amp way-back-when that was the most phenomenal sounding stereo amp that I had ever heard. I still have and play quite often my copy of the classical version of the 10 disc set "Stereo For The Joy Of It" from RCA Red Seal that they gave me as a graduation present. Lots of great memories of those days at U of I....

 

The last time I heard from Steve was about 5 years ago, and at that time they were both living in Madison, WI; Steve retired and Ray working at the university.

I remember also hearing that amplifier you mentioned. I've never heard anything like it since!

 

Thanks so much for the update.... I sure wish they would have had the wherewithal to have produced that amplifier. It was incredible.....

 

I got to hear a pair of Spendor LS3/5A's the other day, driven by SONOS and an Exposure integrated ... wow. Made Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool sound -- wait for it -- utterly beautiful; clarity, depth, tone, imaging ... the phrase "blown away" comes to mind. I know they're supposed to lack the lowest bass octave but, amazingly, at no point did I wish they'd have connected a subwoofer.

Er, that's my LS3/5A story.