Just heard the new Graham/Chartwell LS3/5. WoW.

... Just at the moment I can least afford them.

Spent several hours at Gig Harbor Audio yesterday (great hifi salon, for you Northwesterners); up for audition was a set of Graham Audio LS3/5's (note the lack of an 'A' suffix) ... these are designed to be a replica/tribute to the original BBC broadcast minimonitors (my understanding is, the production LS3/5A's were the second iteration, with changes made in driver complement, crossover and voicing due to problems in production of the original '70s LS3/5.)

Anyway. What a great performance; on a SONOS stream of Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool, the Chartwell-badged LS3/5's opened up the soundstage of this album with shocking clarity; the layering designed by Nigel Godrich and the band was explicit -- this is a beautiful-sounding album. Hidden details were laid bare, but not at the expense of organic coherence. (Quad 57's were mentioned.) Frequency response was very even and non-fatiguing. Most shocking was the fast -- and seemingly deep -- bass. Everyone present (an informal Saturday meetup of local audiophiles) agreed that a sub was utterly surplus to requirements unless (maybe) one listened to pipe-organ recordings.

Given the open-window clarity and resolution of the LS/5's, I'm guessing high-quality source and amp is a must; amp during the demo was a Plinius Hautonga ($6k.)

I could have spent all day listening to music via these speakers; I wished I could have brought a dozen CD-R's in from my car and heard the lot.

And all this from your standard shoebox-sized BBC-style bridge monitor. A game changer? Who knows. At $3,200/pr., not inexpensive; but one observer opined that given the prices of the Graham/Chartwell's natural competition (Harbeth 30.1 was mentioned - what, $5k?) they well might be a bargain.

I'll be revisiting them soon, to apply the Led Zeppelin II stress test ...

 

€ bump £

 

They sound awesome but way out of my price range. I am interested in the Spendor S3/5R2 at half the price!

 

Those are nice.

 

I have a very in-deep review of the Chartwell LS3/5 on the italian magazine Audio Review, including all kind of measurement, accurate inspection of all components, both drivers and crossover, and a complete listening session. Their conclusion is that this is a faithful and very good sounding incarnation of the LS3/5, BBC certified and extremely musical.

 

Graham audio speakers seems very good. im also interested in their bigger model, the ls 5/8.

Bhazen, how do the p3esr compares to the graham version?

 

It's been awhile since I had P3's here ... sonic memory an' all ... plus haven't had the Grahams here ... but my guess? The LS3/5 is better. More transparent, deeper-sounding bass. I'm going to give 'em the Led Zeppelin test later this week; the wee Harbeths choked on Led Zeppelin II. Not a knock ... so much other music sounded enchanting through them.

 

yeah, the p3esr chokes easily. really have to watch the spl level. but within their comfort zone, I love them: such a seductive sound

 

You nailed it.

I'm guessing none of the LS3/5- or LS3/5A-replicas or derivatives should be the desired speakers for a listener whose collection is mainly hard rock or metal; those tiny midrange drivers are gonna protest. But at least the recent iterations of the LS3/5[A] will do the business on almost any other genre of music; and on vocals and acoustic music, captivate. (Usual caveats apply: smallish room, care in amplifier matching, stands, considered distance from walls, etc.)

Thus, I approach Thursday's 'test' with some trepidation - will Led Zeppelin II, a notoriously difficult album on CD, be translatable via the Graham/Chartwells?

 

I've owned those, they are nice. As you can guess from my forum name I've owned more little British bbc inspired speakers than I can remember.

In the $1500 price range check out the Ascend Acoustics Sierra 2. They are the best 'under two thousand' dollar smallish speaker I've heard. Prefer them (slightly, but definitely) to the LS-50.

Also, unless you're in a pretty small room or listen to 90% classical I'd prefer the LS-50 to the S3/5R2.

Sierra-2 RAAL Ribbon Tweeter Bamboo Cabinet Loudspeaker »

 

If you are interested in ls 5/8, have you also considered the Stirling LS 3/6?

 

interesting, have you heard both?

 

I don't know what you expecting LS3/5 to do with Zeppelin. Just don't blow your woofers.

 

Interesting question! It's an occasionally harsh-sounding/distorted record no matter what you play it on; the only problem it caused with the lovely P3ESR's I had was, they sounded 'broken'. I wasn't playing at loud volumes, either.

I may be making too much of this ... all these modern 3/5 variants tend to sound so good on most civilised music ...

 

the nicest sounding speakers I ever heard were a pair of chartwell ls35a, so be gentle with them!

 

Well, they don't even belong to me, so ...

These are Chartwell-badged Grahams, but I don't know exactly what that signifies. On jazz and some Radiohead, they were ... ravishing.

 

No, I haven't, but I own a pair of Stirling ls 3/6 and I consider them to be among the best speakers I ever owned and that includes my beloved Quad 57.
Stirling ls 3/6 was also designed by Derek Hughes just before he designed the Graham ls 3/5. Amazing speakers! See the absolute sound review here:

Stirling Broadcast LS3/6 »

 

oh, didnt knew that. this interest me! I think the sterling are cheaper then shl5 or the graham as well!

 

Am taking the Chartwell LS3/5's home for a demo! Let's see how they do with a Naim amp.

 

awesome! will you compare to scm7 v3?

 

Sure!

 

OK.

Early days, as my Manchester City-supporting friends say ... still. What follows is drenched in subjectivity, hopefully John Atkinson will get round to measuring these as part of a Stereophile review at some point ...

Getting the obvious out of the way: these are, in fact, little BBC-licensed monitors (same dimensions as LS3/5A), and in a quick first listen sound exactly as one might expect. Owners of P3ESR's would recognise the sonic flavour immediately, were they led into the room blindfolded while some acoustic-based music played back. Longer acquaintance would reveal (I believe) a bit more transparency across the whole upper half of the frequency range. Put on Led Zeppelin II (my fave sonic nemesis!) and the LS3/5's faithfully reveal the distortion nasties inherent in the '90s CD -- ouch -- but do so while maintaining a bit more composure than my P3ESR's did.

Vocals and acoustic guitar, as presented by Nick Drake, are natural and clear; I think the nod to "seductive midrange presentation" may still go to the Harbeths ... but it's a very close-run thing. Where the Chartwells shine is, a sense of slightly deeper bass. Less "warmth" maybe, due to lack of the BBC-style upper bass bump; with the P3ESR's, I was always aware of the missing bottom octave; with these, not so much. But it's subtle.

Re: the ATC SCM7'S v.3's; I could never get rid of the feeling that they were small in scale, in my room. A sort of miniature presentation. With the Chartwells, no-one would mistake them for a big speaker but I'm not troubled by the apparent scale of things. Plus -- subjectivity alert! -- there's a more organic/less "mechanical" feel than with the engineered-to-be-bulletproof ATC's. The "trad" little BBC boxes are just more my scene, baby.

Need to play a lot more music through 'em to make any sort of judgement; I like what I am hearing so far, though. As usual, YMMV ...

 

do you still have the scm7 v3 and compare directly or rely on your memory?

 

Memory, but very recent (had the ATC's running here yesterday.)

 

ok, damn that would have been cool as a direct comparison within a couple of minutes is very informative. when I use my P3 for a couple of days im convince that I prefer them to atc, but then when I connect directly the atc, its a whole other story.

the scm7 begin to roll off at 100hz. they need a sub if you want feeling of scale. ill soon post my thoughts on P3 and scm7 but I began yesterday to make notes and funnily I wrote that i find the scm7 more organic and real then the P3 which sounds overly laid back, small and def lacking scale even with a sub. this is what I wrote:

" The atc really grabs your emotion by the balls, and the drama of a performance is fully shown. With the harbeth, its like everything is scaled down. This is very obvious when you compare both. The harbeth seem overly laid back, with crushed dynamics."

ok, sorry to hijack the thread. back to chartwell !!!!!