Musicality. It will force you to listen the music and forgot your HI-FI system.

Well I listen this babies side to side with KEF`s Coda 7 & they blow Coda`s away. Should I say more?

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KEF`s Coda 7

musicality

Well I listen this babies side to side with KEF`s Coda 7 & they blow Coda`s away. Should I say more?

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KEF`s Coda 7

Very good clarity of mid-range and treble; solid, heavy at 10 lbs per loudspeaker, great workmanship; superb focus + soundstaging; exceptionally accurate redition of the human voice; solidly constructed "single-wired" nickel-plated brass binding posts - bare (heavy gauge) wire + banana-plug capable; neat little box.

A little bass-light; "medium" sensitivity - only 85 dB/M/V; cloth grills a little flimsy and difficult to remove, will need a little flat screwdriver to prise the edge of the grill to remove from the front baffle (unimportant really)

Been a passive player in hi-fi all my life. Always been listening to friends' and other people's setup and drooling/marvelling at their GODsent systems costing so much money. I know 'so-much-money' is a relative term, but to me it is always beyond my reach. Finally I was ready to take the plunge and invest in a 'budget' system. With very limited resources, I had to make sure that my money is well spent in all aspects. This is first-ever hi-fi setup. A pair of "Made In England" Rogers LS1 hooked to a ROTEL RA-931 Mk.II integrated amplifier (35W+35W into 8ohms) and a marantz CD4000 player (all brandnew). This cost me a total of RM2,380(or US$630 or GBPounds 400) A 'lot' of dough.

At the demo, I was deeply impressed with the excellent mids and highs produced by the LS1 (2-way bass reflex, front ported). The bass is a little light, though.

TWEETER:
19mm Polymer dome with ferrofluid cooling/damping. The treble is excellent, never sounding harsh, overly prominent or irritating, instead it was very well controlled, 'solid' and smooth.

CROSSOVER FREQUENCIES:
Crosses at 3kHz - 5 precision elements 12dB/octave

BASS/MID-RANGE:
125mm, rigid pressed-steel chassis, low mass paper diaphragm with damping, high flux magnet system, aluminium voice coil former, terminated with natural rubber surround. All these translate into accurate mid-range reproduction. Voices is really sweet, strong, never feeble, articulate and full bodied (like a real singer performing right in front of me).

Another outstanding feature (to me, at least)is the superb imaging and soundstaging capabilities of these little Rogers (30cm[h]x 20cm[w]x 20cm[d]). The relative low sensitivity of 85 dB, was not a problem at all. I'm not a audiophile-type fanatic, but I do appreciate good tonal/vocal reproduction and natural sounding acoustic materials. At the 9 o'clock to 10:30 position, I can already hear the 'meat' of the music, without further need to crank up the volume. (I did pump the volumn dial to almost 12 o'clock...the sounds was still unrestrained and dynamic) The owner's manual states a power handling figure of 75W of unclipped program, and recommends an amp of 15~100W (RMS) output.

Eventhough the LS1s are not capable of mega buckets of bass, nevertheless the bass is low enough and sounds "OK".(freq. response : 75~20kHz +/- 3dB) With my ROTEL, I can 'help' the LS1s subtlely with a dash of bass enhancement via the defeatible tone controls (+/- 6 dB). The LS1s are not exactly your choice for rolling out bass-heavy materials, but they are excellent for mid-range/voice clarity.

The choice of the amplifier has a DIRECT bearing on the way the bass performs on the LS1s.

During the demo I switched to the more powerful ROTEL RA-971 Mk.II (60W+60W, I think). Here, the bass response improved tremendously (fuller, even more 'solid' and powerful) with the excellent treble / mid-range details coming right through. I would very much wanted to get the 971 Mk.II instead of the 931 Mk.II, but owing to budget constraints, I had to settle for lesser.

To me, clarity is the main concern when choosing the LS1, and they fulfiled my criteria without hesitation.

I switched the 971. Mk.II back to the 931 Mk.II and substituted the LS1s with a pair of Mission 731s. The Missions sounded 'diffused' and 'everywhere'. They lacked the focus and the 3-D imaging ability of the Rogers LS1. So impressed, that after a week or so, I went back again to re-audition the probable set-up. This time, I listened to the Missions first, then the LS1. The same conclusion - I settled for the Rogers.

To back track a little...you might already have known, Rogers of England had ceased operations some years ago. The pair I brought home were made sometime in 1995 or 1996. Sort of a 'last-chance' purchase, "never-to-be-repeated-offer" thing. I think many of us would be greatly discouraged to buy defunct or discountinued loudspeakers made five years ago, more so, from a manufacturer who are no longer in operation. Honestly, I was a little reluctant to buy the Rogers, but knowing that I LOVED the way the LS1 performed for me, and that Rogers were highly-acclaimed loudspeaker makers whose products were used by many broadcasting authorities around the world, I put my fears to rest and I am now grateful for the purchase I made. "As long as they sound right and great for me - Who cares?"

Hence, the Rogers LS1s are new 'old' loudspeakers to me! Straight from the box (original warranty + owners' manual intact)they sounded stiff, tight-lipped, short on breathe and 'premature'. Just after some four days (each of 3 hours) of 'low intensity breaking-in' period, I can clearly notice that the Rogers are thawing out beautifully and the music became more and more listenable, mellow and enjoyable. As of today, (22 June 2000), some seven weeks, I thoroughly love my Rogers.

Just my long-winded two-cents worth.
Happy hi-fi-ing, guys

Rgds/Billy

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Nil. First hi-fi system ever.

Precisely focused imaging

Bass shy, limited dispersion and distorted treble.

My first impression is the abundant details it revealed. It did well in presenting my testing disks of different types of music (instrument, vocal etc.).

Now, after listening to it day and night for a month, I can not help but to notice that the bass is very weak (if not non-existence) and the treble is distorted (the 'hiss' effect of female vocalist is obvious) and become very distracting at higher volume.

The good thing is its precisely focused imaging capability, which is better even compared with much more expensively priced B&W Nautilus 804(when tested in show room, of course, the latter is much louder and deeper).


System used:
Speaker: Rogers LS1
Amp: Cambridge Audio A300

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None