LS3/5a Info

What's Inside?
Introduction The Drive Units The Cabinet The 15 ohm Crossover The 11 Ohm Crossover

Introduction The following pictures are of a 15 ohm Chartwell Project Symphony LS3/5a. Other manufacturers' versions, including ones made in the Chartwell factory are similar but somewhat tidier than this example. These pictures can also be viewed with reference to BBC Research Department Technical Report RD 1976/29 and A Little Legend, The BBC LS3/5A. Which was written by Trevor Butler and originally published in HiFi News and Record Review in January 1989. The LS3/5a was manufactured by several licensees during its lifetime including Rogers, Spendor, KEF, RAM, Chartwell, Goodmans and Harbeth. By 1987 too many B110 SP1003 drive units were falling outside specification and so KEF reworked the drive unit. This required a redesign of the crossover circuit. These two versions are usually known as the 15 ohm LS3/5a and the 11 ohm LS3/5a.

A Chartwell "Project Symphony" LS3/5a. The design of the LS3/5a became very popular with BBC staff and many of them wanted pairs for use at home. The speaker was never cheap, tight manufacturing tolerances demanding that all the components be selected. Arrangements were made with Chartwell to supply cabinets, crossovers and drive units in kit form allowing staff to assemble their own speakers. Project Symphony kits were never intended to be available to the general public although many pairs were bought by staff on behalf of their friends. The price was 100 plus purchase tax per pair. Provided that they were built carefully Project Symphonys should sound the same as their factory made counterparts.

The original Chartwell instructions for building the Project Symphony. Click on the image for a larger view. (With thanks to Dave Plowman).

The Drive Units

The drive units chosen for the LS3/5a were the KEF T27 SP1032 tweeter and KEF B110 bass/midrange driver.

The 15 ohm LS3/5a used B110 version SP1003 and the redesigned LS3/5a, usually known as the 11 ohm version, used the B110 version SP1228, All drive units were preselected selected at the KEF factory.

Examples of off-centre B110 drive units are not uncommon and may possibly be "cured" by running the speaker upside down or turning the B110 on the baffle. It is well worth checking for this particularly if buying a used 15 ohm pair. The BBC selected SP1003 drive unit used in the 15 ohm version is virtually unobtainable. So there are many examples of 15 ohm LS3/5as where the drivers have been

replaced either with un-selected B110 SP1003s pulled from other KEF speakers, or with the new version B110. In either case the balance of the LS3/5a is affected and it will fall outside original specification. LS3/5as are balanced for use with the Tygan grill in place. The T27 has a square felt surround to prevent interference effects associated with the cabinet edges and the tweeter dome is covered with a metal grill for protection sourced from a Celestion HF2000. This grill has a small effect on the frequency response which was considered beneficial as it raised the output a high frequencies. The Cabinet
The cabinet external dimensions are 31 x 19 x 16 CMS giving a internal volume of close to 5 litres. The cabinet walls are made from 12mm (0.5 inch) selected birch plywood with internal fillets from beech. Because of the critical nature of the design it was found that the substitution of other wood for the walls or fillets caused clearly audible changes. The use of any hardwood for the beech fillets produced a audible colouration caused by the resonance of the B110 on its chassis. The inside of the cabinet walls are lined with car body damping panels, a single layer is used on the side walls and two layers on the top and bottom. All internal surfaces except the front panel are lined with polyurethane foam; 25mm thick on the top & bottom and 16mm thick on the sides. The cabinet, including the screw holes, is carefully sealed

The 15 Ohm Crossover FL6/23 Because the LS3/5a is a passive design, bass extension can only be achieved by "throwing away" sensitivity at mid and high frequencies. This accounts for the

very poor sensitivity of the design.

Derek Hughes kindly supplied the following information about the value of the tapped inductor, L3: Overall inductance for the autotransformer = 0.64mH (ground to tap 7) The other tap values are approximately: Tap 6 0.5mH Tap 5 0.38mH Tap 4 0.3mH (this is also the feed to the output) Tap 3 0.22mH Tap 2 0.165mH Derek also told me that Spendor 15 ohm LS3/5as did not use a tapped inductor because they tightly selected the drive units. I presume then that the Spendor inductor was 0.3mH to ground with the input and output across the top of it. The crossover shown is model FL6/23 made by Chartwell which was in use in 15 ohm models until 1987. At this point in manufacture all the licensees made up their own crossovers and so variation in printed circuit board layout is seen, although all 15 ohm LS3/5as use the same circuit.

The response of the B110 is equalised by the 1.53mH inductor and 82R resistor. The 6.2uF capacitor, 2.67mH inductor and 33R resistor compensate for the hump in this characteristic. The crossover frequency is 3kHz. L3 operates as a shunt inductor for the T27 tweeter and is adjustable to allow matching of different sensitivity T27 and B110 units. C2 is adjusted on test to keep the crossover frequency constant. Chartwell suggest a value of 2.0uF for tap position 5 in the Project Symphony instructions but the original BBC designs varied the value depending on the position of the L3 tap:
Tap 2 C2a - 2.2uF (Type 1) C2b - 0.47uF (Type 3) Tap 3 C2a - 1.0uF (Type 1) C2b - 1.00uF (Type 1) Tap 4 C2a - 1.5uF (Type 1) C2b - -----Tap 5 C2a - 1.0uF (Type 1) C2b - 0.22uF (Type 4) Tap 6 C2a - 0.47uF (Type 3) C2b - 0.47uF (Type 3) Tap 7 C2a - 0.68uF (Type 2) C2b - ------

C2 to be made up of the above combinations of C2a and C2b in parallel. Type 1 - Polycarbonate, 63Volt +/-5% Type 2 - Advance Filmcap 160 Volt +/-5% CTD 15

Type 3 - Advance Filmcap 160 Volt +/-5% CTD 10 Type 4 - Advance Filmcap 160 Volt +/-5% CTR 6 The crossover PCB is mounted behind the tweeter with a piece of felt between them to damp board resonances. Note the crossover tap (L3) which was adjusted on test.

R4, value 8r2 runs very hot. Examples are common where the polyurethane foam on the adjacent cabinet wall and the nearby crossover capacitor have melted. Changes in the value of R4 due to heat ageing are very likely and may be expected to affect the treble. In extreme cases total meltdown of the HF crossover components can occur if a LS3/5a has been fed with prolonged high level HF energy. The crossover shown was removed from a 15 ohm LS3/5a used in a professional studio where muting was not applied during fast tape spooling. The tweeter had gone open circuit and the heat generated had melted all the capacitors and burnt out all the resistors in the HF section of the crossover. Extensive scorching of the PCB is evident.

The 11 ohm Crossover FL6/38 SP2128 After the design was revised around 1987 all manufacturing of the LS3/5a crossovers was undertaken by KEF. This was because when a speaker fell out side specification there had been disagreements between KEF and the licensees each blaming the other for the problems! With KEF supplying both drive units and crossover this source of conflict was resolved. Greater consistency of B110 manufacture and a smoother response meant that the new crossover could be simplified, eliminating the costly autotransformer used in the older version. Matching of relative sensitivity between the B110 and T27 was now achieved with a resistive ladder. The new crossover made bi-wiring possible and although LS3/5as were always used by the BBC with the terminals strapped, this made the speaker more attractive to consumers.

Back to contents page Below are the Stereophile measurements for a pair of LS3/5as Sidebar 3: Measurements As expected, Spendor's little S35/se is not very sensitive, 2.83V raising just 81.5dB(B) at 1ma 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 S3/5se, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (2 ohms/vertical div.) A wrinkle just below 250Hz in the impedance traces suggests the presence of some kind of cabinet resonance. (Both this and the next measurement were taken with the speaker sitting on upward-pointing cones, which allows cabinet resonances to develop to their fullest.) Fig.2, calculated from the output of an accelerometer fastened to the back of the speaker just above the electrical terminals, shows that this panel does have a high-level resonant mode at 242Hz, as well as another just below 400Hz. Fortunately, this panel faces away from the listener. Modes at 200Hz, 300Hz, and 360Hz can be found on the side and top panels, but these are much lower in level. However, I do wonder if they are associated with the touch of chestiness AD noted on voices, despite the fact that he used Blu-Tack pads rather than spikes as the interface between the speaker and its stand. (An article in Stereophile's September 1992 issue showed that Blu-Tack was very effective at damping cabinet resonances.)

Fig.2 Spendor S3/5se, cumulative spectral-decay plot calculated from the output of an accelerometer fastened to the cabinet's back panel above the terminals. (MLS driving voltage to speaker, 7.55V; measurement bandwidth, 2kHz.) Fig.3 shows the individual farfield responses of the tweeter and woofer, spliced to the nearfield woofer response below 355Hz. The crossover frequency can be seen to lie closer to 4kHz than to the specified 3.5kHz, but there is broad overlap between the two drivers. The high- and low-pass slopes look close to 18dB/octave, and the drivers are reasonably flat within their passbands. The slight rise in the upper bass is almost entirely due to the nearfield measurement technique; the speaker is probably tuned to be maximally flat, with a -6dB point of 55Hz with respect to the level at 1kHz.

Fig.3 Spendor S3/5se, acoustic crossover on tweeter axis at 50", corrected for microphone response, with the nearfield woofer response plotted below 355Hz. Fig.4 shows how these individual drive-units add up at a nominal farfield point on the tweeter axis, averaged across a 30 degrees horizontal window. Again, assuming the apparent rise in the upper bass is a measurement artifact, the response rises slightly from the lower midrange through the mid-treble. AD didn't note any coloration, so I assume this balance aids articulation and the presentation of recorded detail rather than being heard as an energy excess.

Fig.4 Spendor S3/5se, anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50", averaged across 30 degrees horizontal window and corrected for microphone response, with the nearfield response of the woofer plotted below 300Hz. What did surprise me was the slow rollout in the top octave. In anything but a small room and from the time I once spent enjoying music in AD's room, I can testify that it is not "large"the speaker will sound rather mellow. AD's room is also more live-sounding than, say, my own, which is probably why he was not concerned by a top-octave reticence. However, he did note that cymbals shimmered "more politely" compared with the basic S3/5, which might be a function of this behavior. For comparison, the black trace in fig.5 is the S3/5's response averaged across a 30 degrees horizontal window on its tweeter axis, spliced to its nearfield woofer response. Despite the cabinets of the two speakers being identically sized and the woofers looking the same, the S3/5 is tuned to a higher frequency84Hz vs 71Hzwith a slightly less damped alignment. Some of the rise in the upper bass will therefore be real, which I assume was done to better balance the S3/5's less reticent top octave (see later). AD didn't remark on any differences in the LF region, however. The individual drive-unit responses are plotted in red in this graph, and can be seen to cross over at 4.5kHz. But note that the '3/5's tweeter is balanced a couple of dB "hotter" than that in the 'se. All else being equal, that will go some of the way toward explaining AD's description of the differences in the speakers' trebles.

Above: Original LS3/5a Response

Fig.5 Spendor S3/5, anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50", averaged across 30 degrees horizontal window and corrected for microphone response, with the individual responses of the tweeter and woofer (red trace above 300Hz), and the nearfield response of the woofer (red trace below 300Hz).

The big factor that stops things being equal, of course, is the speaker's dispersion. Fig.6 shows how the S3/5se's balance varies to the sides of the tweeter axis. The radiation pattern is remarkably even, something that ties in with stable, accurate stereo imaging. Despite its top-octave rollout, that 0.75" tweeter does maintain its HF output to 20 degrees off-axis, which will ameliorate the audibility of the rollout in rooms of small to medium size. However, the tweeter does increasingly roll off above 12kHz at more extreme off-axis angles.

Fig.6 Spendor S3/5se, lateral response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 90 degrees-5 degrees off-axis, reference response, differences in response 5 degrees-90 degrees off-axis. The S3/5's lateral dispersion (not shown) is basically similar, but with its higher crossover frequency, the beginnings of an off-axis flare between 5 and 10kHz can be seen, due to the woofer's starting to beam in the octave below that region. This will accentuate the audibility of the '3/5 tweeter's slightly elevated level compared with the 'se's. In the vertical plane (fig.7), a suckout in the crossover region develops at off-axis angles greater than +5 degrees and -10 degrees, suggesting that the user's stands should place the tweeters at ear level for the best results. However, I note that AD was not bothered too much by differences in listening height.

Fig.7 Spendor S3/5se, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 45 degrees-5 degrees above axis, reference response, differences in response 5 degrees-45 degrees below axis. In the time domain, the '3/5se's step response (fig.8) indicates that the tweeter and woofer are connected with the same positive polarity, the former slightly but inconsequentially leading the latter in arrival time at the microphone. The cumulative spectral-decay plot on the tweeter axis (fig.9) is very clean, particularly in the tweeter region, though a low-level ridge of delayed energy can be seen at 4.5kHz.

Fig.8 Spendor S3/5se, step response on tweeter axis at 50" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth).

Fig.9 Spendor S3/5se, cumulative spectral-decay plot at 50" (0.15ms risetime). There were no smoking guns to be found in the S3/5se's measurements, though it is fair to point out that its maximum loudness will be limited by increasingly nonlinear behavior compared with larger, more sensitive speakers. But when used within its dynamic limits in a small, not too absorptively furnished room, the little Spendor S3/5se will give, as AD found, excellent performance.John Atkinson