Art Dudley Listening

A few more details: The tweeter domes of my samples of the Graham LS3/5a's, each protected by a removable metal grille in the shape of a cappello saturno, appeared to be fabric rather than Mylar—a substitution Paul Graham later confirmed with the explanation that the original Mylar domes were "very inconsistent in response and sensitivity."

For their part, the Falcon LS3/5a's also have black-painted front baffles with full felt and Velcro; the enclosure's remaining surfaces, including the glued-in rear panels, are veneered. (As nicely finished as the two Graham speakers were, the yew veneer of my Falcon samples was the prettiest of the three.) The Falcons' midwoofer cones and fabric dustcaps had more coating than the Graham LS3/5's but less than that company's LS3/5a's, and very pliant surrounds. The tweeter domes are Mylar, protected by removable metal grilles that seem very slightly thinner than those used by Graham.

A final note: The two LS3/5a's were identical in their cabinet dimensions. The Graham LS3/5's, however, were a quarter-inch shorter and a quarter-inch narrower—although on the Graham website the two models are specified as having identical dimensions. Go figure.

After a few days of happily unregimented listening, during which I fine-tuned the speaker locations, I began my more focused listening with a 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC file of "Things behind the Sun," a sonically simple (if emotionally very complex) voice-and-guitar number from Nick Drake's Pink Moon, streamed from Tidal. Through the Graham LS3/5a's, that fingerpicked steel-string guitar—interestingly, this is one of very few Drake songs played in standard tuning—came across with remarkably good physicality: Like Drake's voice, that instrument was right there, between the speakers, sounding for all the world like a Martin D-28 with strings that were perhaps less than new (footnote 3). Drake's voice was reproduced without apparent colorations, his characteristically drawn-out sibilants conveyed in a manner I've come to regard as correct—likewise the manner in which he holds back on his plosives. Drake's sustained vocal tones were appropriately rich and dark: Though tonally neutral, these LS3/5a's didn't stint on color.

The same album's "Parasite" sounded similarly good—intimate, engaging, almost hypnotic—although here it seemed that a different mike or perhaps EQ curve was used on Drake's voice. (I suppose it's up to the individual listener whether such revelations are blessings or curses of LS3/5a ownership.) As a bonus, the Grahams sounded good when listened to from an off-center seat: For whatever reason, Drake's guitar sounded no less substantial when heard that way.

I then tried the same Nick Drake tracks with the Falcon LS3/5a's—and the sound was noticeably different. Through the Falcons the recorded sound as a whole was considerably more open; not only were the voice and guitar even more present, their textures more apparent, but the acoustic space around those elements was wider and taller, and altogether more audible, than through the Grahams. That the Falcons delivered more treble-range content was apparent after matching the system's loudness through the two different speakers: The 15-ohm Falcons played a little more quietly than the 11-ohm Grahams at the same volume-knob position.

Through the Falcons, Nick Drake's vocal sibilants were a little more prominent than through the Grahams—still within the range of believability/acceptability, if just—and the differences between the vocal sounds on "Things Behind the Sun" and "Parasite" were even more audible.

The first word that came to mind when listening to these Nick Drake tracks through the Graham LS3/5's was "smooth." There was still good musical flow and very good sonic presence, but there was now less emphasis on the attack components of notes: Vocal sibilants weren't as audible as through the Graham LS3/5a's. Listeners with ping-y or overbright rooms might benefit from that sort of presentation, but I admit to being less won over. For better or for worse, there was no doubting: The LS3/5's seemed less like monitors than the Graham LS3/5a's—and considerably less so than the Falcon LS3/5a's.

Do you need a vowel?
Hoping to hear what these very small speakers could do with very large music, I turned to the Georg Solti/London Symphony Orchestra recording of Mahler's Symphony 2 (FLAC, 16-bit/44.1kHz)—and was honestly shocked at how good it sounded through the Graham LS3/5a's. Dynamically, the cellos and double basses in the first movement were surprisingly strong, but that was nothing compared to the impact and apparent bass extension heard from the kettledrums that open the third movement: It seemed to me the Graham LS3/5a's were so cannily balanced in their top-to-bottom response that the illusion of bass depth held sway over all—but the sense of power I heard from this combination of the 18Wpc amp and 83dB-sensitive speakers was no illusion. Beyond that, the combination simply sang: musical flow and momentum were superb throughout—and, as happens all too rarely in this job, what started out to be a brief listening session for purposes of reviewing turned into one in which I was compelled to listen to this longish piece all the way through.

That would happen all over again when I switched the Graham LS3/5a's for the Falcons. Here was more audible air/hall sound around the strings in the opening of the first movement and more audible texture in the sounds of those instruments. The sense of melodic flow in that movement wasn't quite as strong as I heard through the Graham LS3/5a's, which seemed slightly more compelling, but the kettledrums that open the scherzo were every bit as tactile through the Falcons—and likewise the many plucked notes from the strings. And the manner in which the drums' intensity builds slightly in the opening of the final movement was put across nicely by the Falcons, which continued to distinguish themselves as the more sonically insightful.

The Graham LS3/5's were every bit as dynamically accomplished as the other two minimonitors, although they didn't rise to the Falcons' ability to convey the taut, tactile qualities of timpani, or the attack and decay components of plucked notes. But the LS3/5's came across as the richest sounding of the three, sounding especially lovely on massed cellos, and lending good tonal foundation to the vocal soloists and choir in the last movement.

As my time with these loudspeakers stretched on, I made an effort to change up the order in which I auditioned them with various tracks—always a good idea when comparing the sounds of different products. Martha Argerich's performance of Ravel's "Jeux d'eau," from the Deutsche Grammophon album Debut Recital (FLAC. 16-bit/44.1kHz), is characterized by both a sense of wonder and an un-self-conscious virtuosity, and the Falcon LS3/5a's got that across handily—that and, again, a generous helping of the sound of the space in which the recording was made. That track also sounded lovely through both the Graham LS3/5's and LS3/5a's, neither of which sounded as open as the Falcons, yet both of which played the music with a more convincing sense of momentum, in spite of note attacks that sounded less crisp—and here the LS3/5's shone by delivering the richest timbral colors of all.

And in spite of the Graham LS3/5a's having the most powerful-sounding bass on the Solti Mahler recording, it was the LS3/5's that made Ray Brown's double bass sound the most convincing on "I'm an Old Cow Hand" from Sonny Rollins's Way Out West (LP, Contemporary/OJC S7530). That instrument sounded taut and full, with exceptional pitch definition and no-less-exceptional momentum: Through the LS3/5's, it was easy to hear and feel Brown leaning into the notes.

That said, the spatial presence of the performers was more impressive through the Graham LS3/5a's—a challenge, in any event, given the shortage of center fill in this record's very odd stereo mix. More importantly, there was more swing here than through the LS3/5's—more rhythmic vitality in Sonny's sax lines as well as from the bass and drums. And somebody's grunting became apparent through the Graham LS3/5a's, whereas the LS3/5's buried it. The Falcon LS3/5a's also got the grunting—and turned in a lively, stirring, and musically compelling performance overall, although Ray Brown's bass sounded deeper through both of the Grahams.

Incidentally, before ending my time with the Grahams and the Falcons, I spent part of one afternoon carting my Shindo separates into the living room to see how well they'd perform with these electrically insensitive yet nonetheless drivable—in terms of their impedance characteristics—loudspeakers. Driven by my 20Wpc, feedback-free Shindo Haut-Brion power amplifier, the Falcon LS3/5a's sounded engagingly colorful but lacking in snap: music sounded good, but never magical.

In fact, my experiences using the Haut-Brion to drive the Graham LS3/5a's confounded my expectations: In spite of the Falcons' higher nominal impedance, the Grahams responded better to tubes—still not quite Heaven, but a step closer to it. And when driven by the Shindo electronics, the Grahams began to hint at the Falcons' abilities to reproduce air and ambience around instruments and voices.

At the end of the day, Graham Audio's Chartwell LS3/5a was my favorite of these three seriously good, BBC-designed minimonitors. As much as I admired the greater openness and air of the Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a, and as impressed as I was by the surprisingly rich, colorful bass of Graham's Chartwell LS3/5—not to mention the sheer coolosity of hearing, for the first time, a historically important BBC design that has languished in obscurity for over 40 years—it was the newest LS3/5a that gave me the most consistent listening pleasure. Indeed, I was all but shocked, not just by its considerable dynamic aplomb, but by this LS3/5a's ability to play music with natural momentum and flow, and to deliver natural, colorful, well-balanced sound—and by its compatibility (too mild a word!) with the Naim NAIT 2. (Surely there are other amps that can do the job as well; just as surely, there'll be at least one or two that won't break the bank.)

Of course, the 800-lb gorilla in the room is the fact that none of these three speakers are 800-lb gorillas. None delivered the easy impact of a real brush on a real snare drum, or the hard-to-describe physicality of plucked notes from a dozen or more violins. And none came close to reproducing fundamentals lower than 70 or 80Hz. From speakers this small (and relatively affordable), such things simply can't be had—and 35 years of writing about audio tells me we're all better off when people don't even try. It seems to me that what Graham Audio and Falcon Acoustics have done is to bring perfection to what can be accomplished by very small monitors—enough that, for much of the time, I don't miss the things that can't.

I enjoyed my time with all three speakers, but if push came to shove, the Graham Chartwell LS3/5a is something I could live with.

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Footnote 3: Contrary to popular belief, Drake never owned a Guild guitar, as suggested by the cover photo on Bryter Later: That guitar was owned by the photographer, used as a prop.