Ho's LS3/5A monitor users

mugenfoo wrote:

tubejunkie wrote:

chamts1 wrote:Hi KY, pardon me, did not know it is you. Ya... will be interested to listen the BC1, will contact you soon. . . your ESL is not up yet ? Lee (subang ESL63 is keen to meet you).

Hi tubejunkie... AB1.. I only came across 2 pairs, one was playing in LS35a room yr 2008 KLIAV show (Joseph Ki), another pair owner wanted to sell rm2,800. Condition was bad & I could not hear much improvement at that time when paired with my rogers 11ohm.. also the amp then was not good match i think. It was in tong lee KL. If you request to Joseph Ki thro the yahoo group for a visit to listen to his set, it should be most ideal, bring your 35a too, perhaps I can bring mine... pm me if you are keen.
I will like to mention here I wish to thank rsbn589 for the listening session with Leak ST20 & Pilot ??.... But if you wish to listen with AB1, best to visit Joseph Ki.
Kind regards
Cham TS

Hi Ts, thx for your info. Will certainly PM you when time is right. Currently thinking of reducing eco in my room. Considering custom make 50mm cotton wool panel for the wall.
Question is some say they are two type of acoustic room design. 1) studio Room 2) Live room
But question is how much sound absorption is enough ? Some say Studio Room sound too flat.
Must all good acoustic room come wth zero eco ? I mainly listen to vocals and jazz. My room size is 9'x 11' Ceiling height is 9'. Currently i place my speaker (ls3/5a) 4' from the wall.

Best,
Tubejunkie

If u got two aspects of the room having the same length (9' height & 9' length or width), then there would be buildup of some very strong standing waves.

Depending on ambient temperature, barometric pressure & humidity, you should be experiencing a very strong boom at approx 50~60Hz . Is that the case for your listening room now ?

I would say not that serious. coz most of the wall I covered with egg racks as difusser now. Only some echo came from ceiling when clap hands. Hmm..would try some acoustic panel n see.. What's you reconmendation bro ?

tubejunkie wrote:Hi TS, thanx for your reply.. no worries. Managed to 'google' some helpful info..NIce to hear you hv a sub for ls5/5a.. by the way, what's the different btw a DIY and AB1 sub ? r they using the same driver and cross over ?

Best,
Tubejunkie

Hi,
The DIY sub was based on info from this website http://www.ls35a.com. But I did not managed to get the same driver nor the cross-over. So it was just some unbranded 5.25" driver 8ohm and simple cross over with inductor+capacitor. Cabinet made from locally available pylwood. Also, have no chance to compare the real AB1 with the DIY. I think the AB1 cross over is more proper in that the load on the amp is not too demanding, but the DIY one is demanding on the amp. It gets rather hot after long hours of play. But for now suits me well. What amp are you using now ?
Kind regards
Cham TS

I listen to the Ho's LS3/5A and it is true that this unit lives up to its claim. I am wondering if someone can let me try a sub and see if it can further improve. What I found is amazing mids and clear high and sufficiently authoritative lows.

tubejunkie wrote:

I would say not that serious. coz most of the wall I covered with egg racks as difusser now. Only some echo came from ceiling when clap hands. Hmm..would try some acoustic panel n see.. What's you reconmendation bro ?

OK, if u do the clap test and u hear a quick and sharp "PIAK". Then its ok.
If u hear a "PiAAak" or Piaa aaa aa aa a a ak" .. then its bad, and you'll need to treat these "echo slaps".

Good news is that echo slap is relatively easily treated with acoustic foams. And they are not that expensive either. Tong Lee sells some pretty decent square sheets of such foams. Saw some at Centre Circle hifi shop also.


The worst kind of room acoustic problems to treat are bass boom due to standing waves. Real pain in the ass to treat. But this problem is only pronounced with floor standing full range speakers ( speakers that are rated flat response to about 32Hz ).

The Zee Avi CD is a damn good test of deep bass playability. And if u kena this problem, don't blame the system. Its usually the room acoustics and hence should be treated as such with stuff like bass traps, panels, etc etc.

chamts1 wrote:

tubejunkie wrote:Hi TS, thanx for your reply.. no worries. Managed to 'google' some helpful info..NIce to hear you hv a sub for ls5/5a.. by the way, what's the different btw a DIY and AB1 sub ? r they using the same driver and cross over ?

Best,
Tubejunkie

Hi,
The DIY sub was based on info from this website http://www.ls35a.com. But I did not managed to get the same driver nor the cross-over. So it was just some unbranded 5.25" driver 8ohm and simple cross over with inductor+capacitor. Cabinet made from locally available pylwood. Also, have no chance to compare the real AB1 with the DIY. I think the AB1 cross over is more proper in that the load on the amp is not too demanding, but the DIY one is demanding on the amp. It gets rather hot after long hours of play. But for now suits me well. What amp are you using now ?
Kind regards
Cham TS

Hi TS, I am using S.E 300B 8 watts power amp only. Dun think can handle the sub la..

tubejunkie , u listen to music at quite soft levels right?
And mainly easy listening soft vocals ?

The 8W amp is sufficient for your type of listening material?

chua55 wrote:I listen to the Ho's LS3/5A and it is true that this unit lives up to its claim. I am wondering if someone can let me try a sub and see if it can further improve. What I found is amazing mids and clear high and sufficiently authoritative lows.

Hi Chua55,
You must have bought a pair of Ho's ? If you wish, can pm me bring your Ho's to my place listen with sub. (but DIY version not original Rogers AB1). I have a pair Rogers LS3/5A 11ohm version. Or I can bring the pair of sub to your place, but what amp do you use ?
Kind regards
Cham TS

I prefer to bring my amp and Ho's to your place or u can bring your sub and speaker over. will pm you for the date and time. I am using the Audio-gd amp.

Hi All u respected LS3 5A users out there.
I have read the above dialogue with interest.
I have an old 15 ohm LS3 and never really gave it a decent amp.
Pioneer 400x is not happy with it, the sounstage 1.5 from Tong Lee does a better job.
I am pleased to have settled on a Rogers e20a that i bought used via this very forum.
It needed new set of tubes and a bit of tweaking (done by good friend).
I am quite happy now using the system with an active sub ( rogers 10 inch thing that is good value for money)
The important thing even for valve amps is the availability of 15 or 16 ohm taps for these old speakers.
Many modern valve amps do not and would be stressed out driving these old babies.
The e20 (and e40) were designed with the LS3 in mind so do have these highr impedance taps that were pretty standard with the old Leaks and Quads and Dynacos and Macs from the old days.
I have also heard my LS3 sing when used with audiolab pre and a Leak TL30 clone
My 2 cents worth.
Regards

highcut28 wrote:Hi All u respected LS3 5A users out there.
I have read the above dialogue with interest.
I have an old 15 ohm LS3 and never really gave it a decent amp.
Pioneer 400x is not happy with it, the sounstage 1.5 from Tong Lee does a better job.
I am pleased to have settled on a Rogers e20a that i bought used via this very forum.
It needed new set of tubes and a bit of tweaking (done by good friend).
I am quite happy now using the system with an active sub ( rogers 10 inch thing that is good value for money)
The important thing even for valve amps is the availability of 15 or 16 ohm taps for these old speakers.
Many modern valve amps do not and would be stressed out driving these old babies.
The e20 (and e40) were designed with the LS3 in mind so do have these highr impedance taps that were pretty standard with the old Leaks and Quads and Dynacos and Macs from the old days.
I have also heard my LS3 sing when used with audiolab pre and a Leak TL30 clone
My 2 cents worth.
Regards

Hi Haircut28, mind to share what tweak did you do to your E20 ? I owned E20 but one of the output trans was ' burned ' years ago. Thinking of repairing it. Was told by Octave's Yap he has repaired quite a nos of E20.. he said this amp come with manufacturer defect output trans. In fact one of his customer bought original trans from s'pore to replace it...but after few months it spoiled again ?! He ask me to modify to others trans.. but i afraid the sound will be different from original. I am confused...should i change both output trans or just one ? Some say do a normal recoil ( the defective only ) by a skillful repair man will be good enough..would sound balance ( original ). Hi all, any sifu out there willing to help ? thx...

mugenfoo wrote:tubejunkie , u listen to music at quite soft levels right?
And mainly easy listening soft vocals ?

The 8W amp is sufficient for your type of listening material?

Hi Mugenfoo, not that soft level i wouid say. Eventhough is just driven by 1 nos 300B 8 watts per channel output ( single ended class A ) somehow you wouldn't feel is under power or sound soft..of course they is a limitation to how loud this 8 watts can play. ( im satisfied in my small 9.5' x 11.5' room ) cheers..

the thing about those big monstrous amps and the big wattages isn't so much for loud music, but to be able to deliver the transients as close as possible to what was captured in the recording.

With low power amps, these transients will get "chopped off" aka clipped if only for a brief moment but will impact the overall sonic reproduction.

If you ever get a chance to loan/borrow a higher power rated amp. You might be hearing a great deal more realism.. or not.
Maybe something like an ol' faithful Audio Research Classic-60 or a more modern VS60 or similar, sticking to tubes of course.

Your speakers may still give you that extra effort if only you'd pamper it with abit more juice.

Let me put a perspective here. Again sorry if I am harping but it can all be about 'experience'. It's that issue of how our ears/brain is very adaptive.

An example would be my 2nd system. Initially I was planning to just have a system, something very simple so I can have some music over the weekends. So I was using the following system :

Rega P2 with Grado TLZ
Audiolab 8000A as preamp
Acram Alpha-8 power amp
Apogee Centaur Minor

For cables, I thought since it's a simple system I can go el-cheapo. For interconnect, I still have my old pair of MIT MI-330. So that goes between pre and power. As I don't have spare speaker cables lying around and I didn't want to spend anymore, I simply went over to ACE and bought one of those generic (reasomable cost) speaker cable. Should be good enough for simple use right ? So I put the cable in and I actually thought it sounded OK. In particular I was listening to simple vocals at low-ish volume.

Then my friends came over. And by the end of the 1st song, one of them remarked quietly "wow, the system sounded so flat, totally no dynamics". It was only after this statement that I realized it was true.

This is what I mean by our ear/brain being adaptive. Because I was eager to save money I actually convinced myself the system sounded fine, eventhough in reality I wasn't enjoying the music because the sound was so dull and lifeless. I never realized that often I wasn't even waiting for the songs to finish on LP. On CDs, I would simply flip over songs quickly and eventually I ended up not listening to CDs at all.

Do be aware that often we can lull ourselves into this state of complaceny. We will be convinced our system sounds fine and that it is good. Then one fine day - if we are lucky - our friends visits us and they are honest with us, despite not wanting to hurt our feelings. And only then will we realize we have been shortchanging ourselves.

For those interested, I managed to improve the sound by doubling up the speaker cable (the cable was very long so I could cut it up into just the required lengths and double up the runs). Tripling the cables gave even better sound. Just recently I upgraded the speaker cables on my main system so now I was able to move the Symo's over to this 2nd system and it is only now that I am finally getting proper dynamics from the system.

Hi sifu's & sensei's......I need to know if Ho's LS3/5a are magnetically shielded ?? Need to put near screen lah....

I just listen to the HO's LS 3/5a with 300B single ended. I am quite surprise with the smooth sound of instrument and lush vocals. Looks like the HO's are quite selective on amps.

is the ho 35a sound alike legend 35a? n it more easy to drive??

chua55,
are you selling your HO's LS3/5a.

royroy,
please read up
http://audioing.blogspot.com/search/label/speaker

Nice tips by the Kajang Sifu. Wonder can introduce some nice Kajang Satay too.

Ho's LS3/5a + LS3/5as is poor man way to of Jo Ki Method