Graham Audio LS6 Anniversary

Graham Audio has re-ignited the BBC loudspeaker fire like no other brand. In ten short years, the company has stopped the BBC name from being just associated with LS3/5a mini-monitors. And Dr Who, but that’s a different story. It has recreated many loudspeakers that would have otherwise been consigned to Audio Jumbles and the memory bank. So, it deserves to celebrate its 10th birthday. We get to party thanks to loudspeakers like the Graham Audio LS6 10th Anniversary stand-mount.

Thanks to Graham Audio, people have come to admire again what those white-coated, pipe-smoking BBC engineers in its Research and Development team did in the 1960s. Back then, computer modelling and rapid prototyping were the stuff of sci-fi (see the Dr Who reference above). So, they did it the hard way. With slide rules, oscilloscopes (that drifted like crazy because they used valves), and lots and lots of tea.

The legend

Graham Audio produces its versions of the three BBC loudspeakers that became well known outside of ‘Auntie Beeb’s studios and Outside Broadcast vans: the LS3/5a, the LS5/9 and the LS5/8. But such is the audiophile passion for the first of that trio; the others just faded away. In fairness, spares for loudspeakers built more than half a century ago are hard to come by, which is why Graham Audio had a novel way of keeping these legends alive: it hired Derek Hughes – loudspeaker designer and son of Spencer Hughes who (along with Dudley Harwood) was heavily involved in the design process of those original BBC designs.

The company noticed that demand for ‘more than the LS3/5a’ was growing and found many other projects that fit the bill. One of them was acquiring classic BBC-making brand names like Swisstone and Chartwell. And one of the most popular loudspeakers under the Chartwell name today is the LS6.

Chartwell seating arrangement

The Chartwell LS6 sits somewhere between the LS3/5a and LS5/9, but it’s no ‘tweener’ loudspeaker that is never quite as good as the designs that flank it. The ported two-way stand-mount houses a 19mm dome tweeter and a 165mm polypropylene mid/bass unit. It also has a treble lift and tilt switch on the front panel. It uses a thin-wall damped enclosure, common to all the BBC extended family designs.

The Graham Audio 10th Anniversary Audio LS6 takes that Chartwell model and upgrades it significantly. More accurately, as precisely as you are allowed to change products within the tight parameters of BBC designs, the changes also apply to the 10th Anniversary versions of the LS5/9 and LS3/5a.

Perhaps the most significant change from the standard to the anniversary model is the eucalyptus natural wood veneer finish with a black front baffle. This is not simply pretty (although the contrast is excellent, and the veneer is rich and beautiful). It’s more that the black baffle means increased stiffness and vibration reduction because it is a higher density than the standard. This reduces drivers’ interaction with the cabinet’s internal walls as less resonance is transmitted into the speaker cabinet. For the other two designs, it’s just a thicker baffle, but in the LS6 it moves the port from the rear to the front, slightly increasing cabinet volume.

Cables and components

The other significant change is in the component list. The most visible change is the use of high-grade WBT 730.01 loudspeaker terminals. On the inside, the cabling has been changed for Van den Hul throughout, and the crossover has been redesigned for the occasion. It now features higher-grade polypropylene capacitors with improved thermal performance. Finally, owners get a special certificate of authentication, which helps combat speaker cloning.

These are strictly limited designs; after 100 pairs of each have been made… that’s it. This isn’t one of those ‘limited… but not really’ editions. So, get in quick.

While the BBC hard-core will grind their teeth at the notion, the loudspeakers improve after some settling down and running in time. This isn’t a ‘it will sound dreadful for the next 5,000 hours’, and if you play a few hours of music daily, they will be at their best in a week or so, but they benefit from some running in. They also benefit from resting on light, rigid stands instead of high-mass designs.

Easy and unfussy

Those minor caveats aside, the Graham Audio LS6 10th Anniversary is a joy. It’s easy and unfussy to install (six to eight feet apart, three feet from the rear and side walls, and a slight-to-medium toe-in). You’ll want to give yourself an afternoon to do the installation, but more so you don’t rush things and damage that sumptuous finish rather than messing around with positioning. Sure, the more you apply yourself to the speaker’s care and feeding, the greater the reward. And, in fairness, the Anniversary version rewards you more… so don’t be slapdash.

I used them with a Primare I35 Prisma integrated amplifier and had them sitting on some ancient and unfilled Kudos S50 stands. Lighter stands like those from Something Solid would be even better. But at no time did I feel any part of the system was letting the side down. I tried experimenting with cables, but their improvement to the 10th-anniversary LS6 was minimal. You could hear differences, but they were moved to the ‘not so important’ pile of things to do. Buy something reasonable and forget about it.

Not just a wayback machine

I like the 10th Anniversary LS6 because it has all the abilities and charm of classic BBC designs without all the baggage and adoration that comes along for the ride. It’s not simply a wayback machine replaying the 1960s all over again. It’s a good, easy-to-enjoy, effortless-sounding loudspeaker with excellent bass for its size. It is particularly good at vocals and piano music (but is no slouch elsewhere) and isn’t showing its age. Stereo imaging is excellent and detailed without being too forward or brash sounding. It doesn’t walk on water, heal the sick, or perform daily miracles, as those who drank deep of the LS3/5a Kool-Aid would like you to believe.

But what I really like about the 10th Anniversary LS6 is it gives you a taste of what might have happened if the BBC R&D team had kept going. As the technology and means of measuring loudspeakers evolved, that team would have developed more forward and engaging loudspeakers.

No pipe, no slippers

I find the ‘pipe and slippers’ insult thrown at such speakers unnecessary, but the 10th Anniversary LS6 shows there would be more high-frequency insight and a little more volume headroom, too. And, if they had access to improved baffle material, they would use it to make the next generation of loudspeakers. Fortunately, we have more than a good idea of what that next generation of BBC speakers would have been like with loudspeakers like the Graham Audio 10th Anniversary LS6.

It’s hard not to be smitten by this loudspeaker. The move from the rear to the front port makes it more room-friendly. It’s also a bit deeper in the bass and faster than other designs of its ilk. It also has greater volume headroom and dynamic range. Let’s temper that by stressing the word ‘greater’; compared to the room-buster high-end behemoths, no speaker of this size will raise the roof or shift a few organs about unless it’s cheating. And the LS6 is way too honest to even think about cheating. However, it does go louder and deeper than its peers.

The real joy

The real joy of the LS6 – Anniversary or not, but especially this 10th Anniversary model – is in listening to voices. My usual Joyce Di Donato track from Stella Di Napoli [Erato] speaks volumes here; the voice is beautifully legato and articulate. It soars as she unleashes that powerful mezzo-soprano but stays with her as the voice fades into silence. The deft accompanying orchestra, especially the French Horn player, are rendered in a three-dimensional space. The sense of harmonic richness and texture is palpable.

But that is bread and butter to a loudspeaker like this. Infected Mushroom isn’t. So, you might expect ‘End of the Road’ from Legend of the Black Shawarma [Perfecto] to be a bit of a soft-edged mess. But its dynamic range, bass depth and speed are all surprising. The loudspeaker never gets lost in the fast trance beat. Its leading-edge performance is more than good enough to give you a neck ache from moving your head to the rhythm.

Let’s say that again. The throbbing, psychedelic trance of Infected Mushroom played through a loudspeaker firmly in the BBC tradition. And the speaker makes it sound good. Either there is something in the water, or the Graham Audio 10th Anniversary LS6 has got it very right.

Technical specifications

• Type: Two-way, reflex-loaded stand-mount loudspeaker
• Drive Units: 19mm dome tweeter, 165mm polypropylene mid/bass
• Enclosure: Thin-wall damped construction
• Frequency Response: 45Hz-20kHz ±2dB
• Sensitivity: 87dB/2.83V/1m
• Nominal Impedance: 8Ω
• Dimensions (WxHxD): 37x24x26cm
• Weight: 9.5kg
• Price: £4,022, $3,950, €4,022 per pair

Manufacturer

Graham Audio

www.grahamaudio.co.uk

+44(0)1626 361168

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