I asked Jerry who makes the shiny speaker-wire binding posts. He said they were an exclusive inhouse design, from Falcon.
Okay folks, here is the really good news: Falcon's new, and I think improved sounding, "Gold Badge" edition costs the same $2999.95/pair as the "classic" Falcon LS3/5a I've been using for more than five years. And wait, there's even better news: The price of the classic Falcon 5a is now only $1995/pair, making it the least expensive BBC-licensed LS3/5a available in (and only in) the United States. This reduction in price is possible because the "classic" has become a MoFi-badged LS3/5a, made for MoFi in England by Falcon, and it comes only in an exclusive Black Ash finish. Falcon Acoustics' new Gold Badge version may still be ordered in a variety of natural-wood finishes.
Listening with a First Watt F8
I placed the LS3/5a's about 65" apart and exactly 13" from the front wall. In that position, vocal and instrumental tones are locked in, and the speaker boxes disappear completely from my eyes-closed awareness.
I began my auditions by putting the Gold Badge Falcons in my system (driven by the 25Wpc, $4000 First Watt F8 stereo amplifier) and forgetting about them. For four weeks. I forgot about them—except that all the while I was thinking, "Why would I ever want another amp or speakers?" After four weeks, I remembered them again.
Falcon's Gold Badge LS3/5a can deliver enjoyable, well-sorted renditions of all types of music, but intimate vocal, solo piano, and chamber-instrument fare is the reason people like me are lifelong 5a devotees. It is the reason devotees devote so much time to finding the most compatible amplifier, one that brings out all of the essence of tone the 5a's are capable of. The new First Watt F8 amplifier delivered said essence of tone, through intricate waves of nuanced detail and subtle microdynamics. The F8 might be one of those "just right" amplifiers devotees crave.
My chief long-term criticism of the standard Falcon LS3/5a is its very slight tendency toward dryness in the bass and graininess in the crossover region. The new Gold Badge Falcons were the opposite of that. They presented music in a conspicuously grainless and unabashedly liquid manner. The first thing I noticed was how music flowed extra-easily and extra-quietly out of the Gold Badge boxes. The sound seemed more relaxed and less restrained than the classic version.
A big part of my longstanding affection for Harbeth's P3ESRs is how they are never dry—they are always rich and full between 75Hz and 400Hz. I go to them for their consistent warmth, especially on male vocals. The Harbeths are a speaker I use for pleasure listening, while the classic Falcon LS3/5a's have more of a studio monitor personality. The Gold Badge Falcons with the First Watt F8 gave me the best of both worlds.
With the Parasound A 21+
After a few weeks, I replaced the First Watt F8 with the 300Wpc (8 ohms) Parasound A 21+ stereo amplifier. The first thing I noticed was how dramatically the depth of soundstages increased. Significant amounts of microdetailed, dark space were added to the back of every recording. With the A 21+, my mind's eye was constantly examining the rear shadows of the soundstage. Singers and double-bass got taller. String plucks had more pluck. Pianos had stronger hammers hitting tighter strings.
The BBC's LS3/5a speakers are famous for their uncanny ability to show listeners what's going on at the outside edges of an orchestral soundstage, showing instruments and musicians in proper relative scale, and putting string quartets right there in the room in front of their owners. The Gold Badge Falcons driven by the Parasound A 21+ took those famous qualities to a level I had not experienced previously. It was quite impressive.
The only attribute the Parasound A 21+ lacked—what it didn't do that old-school LS3/5a aficionados crave—is midrange magic. Most LS3/5a devotees enjoy the vividness and sensuality of tubes with their BBC monitors. The A 21+ played too dry for that taste. It emphasized microdetail and dynamic structure in a way that recovered information but neglected to bring live air and luminosity with it.
With the tubed Line Magnetic LM-518 IA
One dark night, I was dreaming to Dakh Daughters' self-released album, If (16/44.1 FLAC Tidal), when I decided on a whim to switch from the classic Falcons to the Gold Badge Falcons. With the original 5a, I was engaged and delighted by how taut, full, and pitch-perfect the Line Magnetic LM-518 IA's tubes were making the bass sound. Just before the changeover, I had paused the If album on its title track. When the song resumed playing—now through the new Gold Badge models—the bass seemed denser, deeper, darker, less opaque, less grainy, and pluckier, with sounds emerging from a more silent background. The difference was not huge, but it was impossible to not notice how the space around bass notes seemed markedly airier and more transparent.
I stick with the 22Wpc Line Magnetic LM-518 IA because it delivers the most vivid, unmangled, articulate high frequencies of any amplifier I have owned since the 25Wpc Audio Note (Japan) Ongaku—which cost $90,000, used General Electric 211 tubes, and made my old Rogers LS3/5a's sound spiderweb-LSD-filigree mesmerizing. It was the exact perfect amplifier. For five years, the Line Magnetic's 845 triodes have performed a similar but less psychedelic function with the classic Falcon '3/5a. Now, because the new Gold Badge version sounds more pure, grainless, and full, some of that audio-on-acid effect is back in my listening room.
Finally, I realized: No matter which amp I was using, every time I put the new Falcon LS3/5a Gold Badges in the system, I did not want to take them out. I did not want to lose their beautifully balanced, let-out-my-breath, forget-about-audio just-rightness.
So now...
The $1995/pair black ash-only, silver-badged MoFi LS3/5a is, in all ways except finish, the same as the $2999.95/pair speaker I've enjoyed for the last five years. The comes-in-many-wood-finishes Falcon Acoustics Gold Badge LS3/5a is the even-better $2999.95/pair speaker I never dreamed I'd experience. Can you dig that?
I placed the LS3/5a's about 65" apart and exactly 13" from the front wall. In that position, vocal and instrumental tones are locked in, and the speaker boxes disappear completely from my eyes-closed awareness.
Falcon's B110 drivers with 5" coated-Bextrene cones.
This is a perfect Herb system. It was flat-out liquid, spacious, and beguiling. Mezzosoprano Clare Wilkinson's voice on "I Will Give My Love an Apple" from Ballads Within a Dream (24/96 FLAC Harmonium Mundi/ Qobuz) offers the perfect high-tone/low-tone counterpoint to Hille Perl's viola da gamba playing. The sound with the First Watt F8 powering the Gold Badges was pure, exquisitely detailed, and bathed in shimmering light.
Falcon's Gold Badge LS3/5a can deliver enjoyable, well-sorted renditions of all types of music, but intimate vocal, solo piano, and chamber-instrument fare is the reason people like me are lifelong 5a devotees. It is the reason devotees devote so much time to finding the most compatible amplifier, one that brings out all of the essence of tone the 5a's are capable of. The new First Watt F8 amplifier delivered said essence of tone, through intricate waves of nuanced detail and subtle microdynamics. The F8 might be one of those "just right" amplifiers devotees crave.
A big part of my longstanding affection for Harbeth's P3ESRs is how they are never dry—they are always rich and full between 75Hz and 400Hz. I go to them for their consistent warmth, especially on male vocals. The Harbeths are a speaker I use for pleasure listening, while the classic Falcon LS3/5a's have more of a studio monitor personality. The Gold Badge Falcons with the First Watt F8 gave me the best of both worlds.
With the Parasound A 21+After a few weeks, I replaced the First Watt F8 with the 300Wpc (8 ohms) Parasound A 21+ stereo amplifier. The first thing I noticed was how dramatically the depth of soundstages increased. Significant amounts of microdetailed, dark space were added to the back of every recording. With the A 21+, my mind's eye was constantly examining the rear shadows of the soundstage. Singers and double-bass got taller. String plucks had more pluck. Pianos had stronger hammers hitting tighter strings.
With the tubed Line Magnetic LM-518 IAOne dark night, I was dreaming to Dakh Daughters' self-released album, If (16/44.1 FLAC Tidal), when I decided on a whim to switch from the classic Falcons to the Gold Badge Falcons. With the original 5a, I was engaged and delighted by how taut, full, and pitch-perfect the Line Magnetic LM-518 IA's tubes were making the bass sound. Just before the changeover, I had paused the If album on its title track. When the song resumed playing—now through the new Gold Badge models—the bass seemed denser, deeper, darker, less opaque, less grainy, and pluckier, with sounds emerging from a more silent background. The difference was not huge, but it was impossible to not notice how the space around bass notes seemed markedly airier and more transparent.
I stick with the 22Wpc Line Magnetic LM-518 IA because it delivers the most vivid, unmangled, articulate high frequencies of any amplifier I have owned since the 25Wpc Audio Note (Japan) Ongaku—which cost $90,000, used General Electric 211 tubes, and made my old Rogers LS3/5a's sound spiderweb-LSD-filigree mesmerizing. It was the exact perfect amplifier. For five years, the Line Magnetic's 845 triodes have performed a similar but less psychedelic function with the classic Falcon '3/5a. Now, because the new Gold Badge version sounds more pure, grainless, and full, some of that audio-on-acid effect is back in my listening room.
Finally, I realized: No matter which amp I was using, every time I put the new Falcon LS3/5a Gold Badges in the system, I did not want to take them out. I did not want to lose their beautifully balanced, let-out-my-breath, forget-about-audio just-rightness.
So now...The $1995/pair black ash-only, silver-badged MoFi LS3/5a is, in all ways except finish, the same as the $2999.95/pair speaker I've enjoyed for the last five years. The comes-in-many-wood-finishes Falcon Acoustics Gold Badge LS3/5a is the even-better $2999.95/pair speaker I never dreamed I'd experience. Can you dig that?
