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Hello everyone, this is Yagi from Hi-Fi Do Kyoto Repair Department. The it has become cool here in Kyoto and the heat of summer feels like long ago. I hope you are well wherever you are reading this. The other day, I went to McDonalds to have Tsukimi Burger, which is my favorite in their menu. The local menu of the franchise is only available during this season and it is one of my annual events. It makes it even tastier that I could eat inly in fall. I will definitely do this next year too. *Tsukimi (literally Moon-viewing) is a Japanese festival to honor the autumn full moon. It originated during the Heian period (794 - 1192).

	This time, following the last blog of mine, I will examine my favorite thing, BBC's monitor speaker Rogers LS3/5A. I will focus on the 15 ohm era this time.
Rogers LS3/5A was released in 1975 and was on sale until 1999. (It is said the reason of the discontinuation was damage on the metal mold to produce the units and the company couldn't manage the cost to replace that. Currently, a new version of LS3/5A is sold with different units. I will exclude this this blog.) In its long sale of 25 years, there were some design changes. One of well-known change was the change of electro resistance from 15 to 11ohm. I will dig into minor changes in the 15ohm era.

The very first models had gold plates on saran nets, which is extremely rare. I haven't seen any of this model in person before. It seems there are a few kinds of type fonts as well. Another feature is ribbon pulls on nets. I sometimes encounter owners of these from overseas. As far as what I could find, the serials are up to somewhere around 3000s. The next generation came with black plates. We have had some stocks of these in the past. You could find this model on the catalogue (see the head of the article) of Odex Japan official Japanese distributor of the speakers at that time. I think the serials are up to somewhere around 10000s. Some call these "early" or "GoldBagdge" and they are still very popular.

The next one came with plates with the model name LS3/5a below the company name. Both gold and black exist for this too. I see more of gold ones. According to the records of our past stocks, serials are between 165xx and 248xx. It seems white belly, units with white plates seem to be common overseas.
	The last is the Rogers logo that everyone knows. Until the final units manufactured, this logo was used. Based on our record, the serials were from 165xx to 248xx. However, there is possibility that some plates have been replaced. There is no way to confirm the serials.

	Okay, let's step forward. These are tweeters T27 (SP1032). If you are a connoisseur, you might know this what the blue wire means. Only early units have these. According to our record, units until 138xx had this feature. After, both wires become black. Another change can be seen in diaphragms. They change to ones with rough surface from smooth ones from somewhere around 18xxx.

	Next let's look at the weefer B110 (SP1003). The differences are very subtle but it seems there is. Compared to early units, ones from 17000 to 30000 seem to have thicker glues around the caps. The late units (after 31000s) have cone papers with different texture and the width of surrounds differ. Which, in my opinion, means the model changed to SP1228.
Next is the stickers on the back. The early ones (serial: 027 and 028) are extremely rare too. I could find the 001 and 002 on the internet and they had the same design. Apparently units until somewhere around 1000s come with this design. You could also buy a pair with consecutive serial numbers nowadays at some maniac websites.


After, Rogers adopted paper stickers and added Union Jack to the design. During this era, they started to add A/B at the end of the codes. These above are both similar but I could see some differences in type fonts at the model number and absence of the mention of "MADE BY Rogers...". The left type could be found between the late 400s and early 1000s and the right could between early 1000s and early 8000s, which overlaps with the first type. According to my research, early 1000s were made sometime around 1976.

Then finally, the stickers everyone is familiar to. However, there is a difference between the two above. Can you find it? The answer is the address. The company's history says that Rogers moved their manufacture base from London to Mitcham, Surrey. Mitcham stickers start from 20xxx so it can be thought that the units were made after 1981. London units in our archive were between 81xx to 181xx. One thing that I cannot figure out is the color. Some are gold and some are silver and there is no coherence to the pattern. I have no idea what these differences mean.
This is the final design of the 15ohm era, which I am sure you are familiar to. Based on our record, it was produced between 286xx and 354xx. Color changes between gold and white on this one as well.

Lastly, let's look at the terminals. From the early to London era, most seemed to have banana jacks and some were XLR type. Single type, that we are familiar to, starts from serial number 20000s. It overlaps with the change of the address to Mitcham so that might have been the timing.
That's it! I hope you enjoyed it. It was surprising that there were so many small changes during the 15ohm era. Please let me disclaim that many information that I wrote are estimates especially for rare early units. Please consider this as a reference. This time I reported external changes throughout the history. I will continue the research and report you in the future. Until then!

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