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ROGERS’ ANDY WHITTLE EXPLAINS THE WHY AND THE HOW<\/strong><\/p>\n To the younger hi-fi enthusiast, of whom there are undoubtedly some among our ranks, it might come as a surprise to learn the BBC once designed its own speakers. The same licence fee that’s now used to fund new series of Mrs Brown’s Boys was once invested in what Rogers Hi-Fi’s Andy Whittle calls Britain’s “world-breaking commitment to audio”.<\/p>\n The task of building the speakers was divided up between a thriving British hi-fi industry \u2013 Rogers was among the companies holding licenses, along with Goodmans and Spendor. Having already brought the LS3\/5A and LS5\/9 back to the market, Rogers has plans to re-release more of the company’s back catalogue in the future.<\/p>\n Though the parts are more or less the same, drivers previously built by KEF have had to be reverse-engineered. As Whittle explains, this is as much about recapturing the sound and the essence of the speakers as it is following an old recipe.<\/p>\n A PERSONAL HISTORY<\/strong><\/p>\n What Hi-Fi?: Let\u2019s talk about your background. How did you get from where you started to where you are today?<\/strong> So that\u2019s how I started. I did a spell with Celestion in Ipswich, which at that time had a professional market and a domestic hi-fi market. I was working on the professional side, on 10- and 12-inch guitar speakers. It\u2019s the polar opposite to home audio because you\u2019re not trying to introduce distortion, but guitar speakers like distortion in certain places at certain times.<\/p>\n You\u2019re actually trying to colour the sound there?<\/strong> After that, I did a bit down at Mordaunt-Short, which was part of the TGI group that owned Tannoy and Goodmans. TGI also had Epos and Creek Audio, and there was a period in the late 80s when we were all together under one roof. I ended up working with Robin Marshall on the Epos ES11 bass unit.<\/p>\n In the early 90s, I moved to Rogers. It\u2019s a small industry, of course \u2013 everyone moves around and knows everybody else. At that time, Rogers was making all the BBC monitors. I carried on the Rogers tradition of the BBC-balanced sound and brought out one or two new ranges. I did the AB1 subwoofer that went with the 3\/5A, and then we did the DB101.<\/p>\n Michael O\u2019Brien, who owned Rogers, sold the company to the Wo Kee Hong Group in Hong Kong. They ran it for four or five years before the big financial crisis in the late 90s when they pulled the plug on the UK manufacture. They weren\u2019t making those products in Hong Kong or China, they were basically making their own products and introducing them to the domestic market; so they moved a bit more mainstream, doing more AV stuff. But that was all kept in the domestic China market.<\/p>\n After that, I ran Exposure for about five years, and then for the past ten years, I\u2019ve been working with Audio Note UK. I kept in touch with the Rogers people, and a few years ago they contacted me and said they were looking to make a small batch of speakers in the UK for Rogers’ 70th anniversary.<\/p>\n We got those made, then I said to Richard Lee, the chairman of Wo Kee Hong, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just start making the 5\/9 and 3\/5A back in the UK?\u2019 My friend Kevin from Talk Electronics has a factory, so I spoke to him and that\u2019s what we did.<\/p>\n So we get the cabinet and the crossovers made here in the UK. I reverse-engineered the drive units, because KEF doesn\u2019t make those anymore. They come in from China, we finish the drive units here and we assemble the tweeter \u2013 we put the dome into the magnet \u2013 so the final assembly is done here.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve been doing that now for about 2.5 years. We have a BBC licence for that and do the same for the LS5\/9. We\u2019re also looking at making an active LS5\/8; we\u2019re doing the amplifier design and are hoping those will be ready this September.<\/p>\n A CERTAIN CHARACTER<\/strong><\/p>\n Why did you want to start making these BBC speakers again?<\/strong> It has a certain character you don\u2019t get with modern products. Maybe it\u2019s a bit like driving a Morgan car: it\u2019s not going to set the world alight with its 0-60mph stats or top speed, nor is it the last word in handling, but it still provides a purpose.<\/p>\n If you look at the quality of the R&D and the resources available to the BBC at the time, there must have been millions of pounds spent on developing the 3\/5A \u2013 or certainly a considerable amount in today\u2019s money. These days I wouldn\u2019t know, but I don\u2019t think so much is invested in the acoustics of the speaker.<\/p>\n You talk about the character of these speakers; how would you describe it, and what makes that BBC character so special?<\/strong> In terms of the driver development and crossover integration, it\u2019s seamless and you can\u2019t hear the join. So there\u2019s no phase, there\u2019s no funny off-axis performance, it\u2019s easy to hear the layers \u2013 which, again, is quite important for recording.<\/p>\n It comes back to the tonality. It\u2019s easy to design speakers to try and chase more detail and a brighter edged sound, but it\u2019s like putting more salt on your dinner \u2013 you just upset the balance of the flavours. Ultimately, it\u2019s about that presentation, that tonality and the ability to reproduce the human voice.<\/p>\n If you look back at what was around in the 1970s that has stood the test of time, there are only a few things \u2013 maybe a Mini or a London bus. But it\u2019s trying to nail that flag that says this is what we made in the UK, this was our world-breaking commitment to audio back in the 70s, and it still seems to have some merit today.<\/p>\n If you take a pair of the new 3\/5As and put them against the old 3\/5As, there are subtle differences, but for all intents and purposes, they have the same DNA. You can follow it through.<\/p>\n CRANKY OLD DRIVE UNITS<\/strong><\/p>\n How many comparisons have you done with the new speakers?<\/strong> You mentioned KEF now not making the drivers. Is that the main thing that’s changed from the 1970s to now?<\/strong> When KEF was bought out by Gold Peak \u2013 around the same time Gold Peak bought Celestion \u2013 they weren’t interested in making 3\/5As, as they had bigger fish to fry. They were looking at seriously growing the company, to the point where now KEF does the consumer side and Celestion does the pro side. And you can see with their modern products that they’re going great guns. They aren’t interested in making cranky old drive units \u2013 they leave that to us.<\/p>\n Sorting out the drive units was the biggest challenge. But on reflection, we’re quite happy we managed to capture the essence of that. The way it’s partnered with the crossover and the cabinet, with those three ingredients we’ve got the right result.<\/p>\n So are these current versions geared more towards hi-fi or pro?<\/strong> [\/et_pb_accordion_item][\/et_pb_accordion][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ROGERS’ ANDY WHITTLE EXPLAINS THE WHY AND THE HOW To the younger hi-fi enthusiast, of whom there are undoubtedly some among our ranks, it might come as a surprise to learn the BBC once designed its own speakers. The same licence fee that’s now used to fund new series of Mrs Brown’s Boys was once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"1920","footnotes":""},"categories":[337],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-divi","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"yoast_head":"\n
Andy Whittle: I started in 1985 with Goodmans loudspeakers. At that time, Goodmans had a license for making the BBC LS3\/5A. I worked on what was then the MkII Goodmans Maxim; there was an original Goodmans Maxim in the 60s, which was partly designed with Laurie Fincham from KEF. When I worked at Goodmans, they were making 3\/5As and wanted to reinvent the Maxim name, but a cheaper version. I designed the Maxim II speaker, which got some awards and good reviews.<\/p>\n
You want some break-up, but also a particular tone. It’s interesting \u2013 you spend most of your career trying to get rid of distortion and then someone asks you to put it back in. It\u2019s like, let\u2019s look through the other end of the telescope and see what happens.<\/p>\n
There still seemed to be an appetite for BBCdesigned products. I was in the audio industry, travelling around to shows and, without being arrogant, most of what I heard didn\u2019t actually sound that good. I\u2019d start listening to the older stuff and think, that sounds better than some of the newer stuff. Why not make the old stuff again?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have a BBC background on the design side, but ultimately, it\u2019s all about the vocal and the voicing. If it\u2019s for an outside broadcast van and they are mixing, the vocals have to be 100 per cent spot on. If you get that right in the critical mid-band, the bass and top aren\u2019t so critical. Get it right and you\u2019re pretty much home and dry.<\/p>\n
I’ve done comparisons with earlier Rogers products, including a pair of 3\/5A from 1976 that I use as my reference. The BBC licensed it out to more than one supplier in case of supply issues, but they should have been able to take one from any manufacturer and swap them out. The left speaker could have been a Spendor and the right a Rogers, and you should have still been able to mix on it.<\/p>\n
Yes, that’s the biggest thing. KEF used to make the woofer and tweeter, then the independent licences used to make their own crossover. And there came a bit of argy-bargy between people saying these drive units are no good, and KEF would say, \u2018Well it’s your crossover\u2019. Eventually, the BBC stamped that out, so KEF would produce the matched woofer, tweeter and crossover.<\/p>\n
I don’t know how the market has changed on the pro side, but I want to get these speakers back into the BBC studios. I want to say to them: \u2018Whatever you’ve got in Maida Vale, throw it in the bin and put the Rogers 3\/5A in\u2019. That’s my plan anyway.<\/p>\n