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Blind Tests & Bus Stops Letters, September 2005

Letters in response appeared in September 2005 (Vol.28 No.9):

Amplifiers & measurements

Editor: Although I am one of the few classical musicians I know who actually cares about the quality of reproduced sound, I have never considered my ears to be golden. Still, I can confidentially differentiate realistic-sounding equipment from crap. I attended the debate at Home Entertainment 2005 between John Atkinson and Arnold Krueger (if one can term any verbal interchange with Krueger a debate, or even a discussion). [An MP3 recording of the debate is available.—Ed.] I was fascinated…

Spendor S3/5se loudspeaker

Transistors can be made to sound like tubes, digital can be made to sound like analog, and cables can be made to sound like no cables. You'd almost think we live in an age of miracles.

But can a little speaker be made to sound like a big one? Generally, no. Moving a 5" plastic cone back and forth 41 times a second is not the same as reproducing the lowest note of an electric bass, and loudness is not the same as scale. Like it or not, in 2003 as in 1903, the only way to move a lot of air is to move a lot of air.

But the Spendor S3/5se does one of the nicest end runs around the…

Spendor S3/5se loudspeaker Page 2

The hookup wire looks better, too—this despite the lack of soldered joints, forgone in favor of push-on connectors, themselves merely crimped to the ends of the wires—and the links that go between the two pairs of chunky, gold-plated terminals are plated with gold, in contrast with the cheaper ones you get with cheaper speakers.

Other than that, the standard S3/5 ingredients prevail, including a beautifully made woofer with a molded frame, Spendor's own individually made inductors (I've been there! I've seen them do it!), and an intelligently designed thin-walled cabinet that uses a…

Spendor S3/5se loudspeaker Page 3

For whatever reason, I could never quite get the Spendor to "float" voices as well as it did solo instruments: Other speakers allow singers a greater and more believable sense of presence—the Spendor's failure to do so remained its most notable shortcoming, certainly more so than dynamic compression, lack of bass, or anything else so obvious. Heard through this speaker, familiar voices also sounded very slightly darker and somewhat chestier than I'm used to hearing—as true with Janet Baker singing Purcell's "When I am laid in earth" as with Peter Pears doing the solo tenor turn in Britten's…

Spendor S3/5se loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Two-way, stand-mounted, sealed-box loudspeaker for use with stands 24-31" high (not included). Drive-units: 0.75" coated fabric-dome tweeter, 5" homopolymer cone woofer. Crossover frequency: 3.5kHz. Frequency response: 90Hz-20kHz, ±3dB. Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 6 ohms minimum. Sensitivity: 84dB/W/m.
Dimensions: 12" H by 6.5" W by 7" D. Weight: 10 lbs.
Finishes: Light cherry, rosewood, bird's-eye maple veneers.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: 201A00011, 201A00012.
Price: $1249/pair in light cherry veneer, rosewood veneer adds $100/…

Spendor S3/5se loudspeaker Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog sources: Linn LP-12 turntables (two) with Linn Lingo and Naim Armageddon power supplies; Naim Aro and Linn Ekos tonearms; Supex 900 Super, Miyabi 47, Denon DL-103D, and Lyra Helikon Mono phono cartridges; Audio Note AN-S2 moving-coil step-up transformer; Rega Planar 3 turntable with Rega RB-300 tonearm and Rega Elys and Exact phono cartridges.
Digital source: Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.
Preamplifiers: Naim NAC32-5, Linn Klimax Kontrol.
Amplifiers: Naim NAP110, Linn Klimax Twin.
Cables: Nordost Valhalla, Linn Balanced, Linn Analogue,…

Spendor S3/5se loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

As expected, Spendor's little S35/se is not very sensitive, 2.83V raising just 81.5dB(B) at 1m—a dB less than the BBC's original LS3/5a. However, its plot of impedance magnitude and electrical phase against frequency (fig.1) indicates that it is a kind load for the partnering amplifier to drive. The impedance drops below 8 ohms only below 40Hz and in the lower midrange, and stays above 10 ohms for much of the audioband. The peak of 28 ohms at 71Hz indicates the tuning of the sealed box, which in turn implies limited LF extension.

Fig.1 Spendor S3/…

BBC LS3/5a loudspeaker

These diminutive little sleepers have been available in the US for quite some time but have attracted little attention because (1) they have never really been promoted and (2) they are just too small to look as if they could be worth $430 a pair.

Originally designed by the BBC for monitoring of on-location broadcast and recording pickups (footnote 1), they hide most of their cost—a complex equalizer and phase-corrected crossover network—inside a cabinet only slightly larger than a shoe box. They were intended for "close-in" listening in a small control room rather than to fill a large…

BBC LS3/5a loudspeaker 1977 BBC Version part 2

We were not able to determine how far out the high end goes, because our oscillator's upper limit is 20kHz, but the smoothness and the ability to reproduce hard transient information (triangles, castanets, etc.) suggested that 27kHz might not be a bad guess for the upper rolloff point (footnote 3). Overall, the monitors have an extraordinary feeling of depth and breadth to their sound. Inner details were excellently rendered, and there were no audible vowel-like colorations that we could detect. The only thing we could fault the Monitors on (other than the low-end range) was a subtle…

BBC LS3/5a loudspeaker 1984 Spendor version

A review by Dick Olsher of the Spendor version of the BBC LS3/5a appeared in August 1984 (Vol.7 No.4):

The speakers in this survey range in price from $300 to $500 per pair which makes them less than extremely budget (eg, the Boston Acoustics A40 at $150/pair). It has been my experience that $400 or thereabouts is about the least one can pay for a pair of speakers with the expectation of audiophile-calibre sound.

Design constraints are quite serious in this price range. Cabinet size is kept modest so that lumber and finishing costs are kept to a minimum. Driver quality and…