Harbeth LS3/5a - the facts about why production ended
There seems to be some misunderstanding about why the original KEF woofer/tweeter based BBC LS3/5a ceased production more than ten years ago. This terminated not only the production of the well regarded Harbeth LS3/5a version but all other KEF-based LS3/5a offerings.
The facts are these: KEF, manufacturer of the T27 tweeter and B110 (SP1228 variant) made a business decision to cease production of these parts. It coincided with KEF being taken over by the acoustics division of Gold Peak (GP) the world's largest battery manufacturer. Naturally, large efficient corporations such as GP have management priorities and a business strategy which is under constant review and obviously designed to maximise shareholder value. When this trickles down to individual production facilities, local management consider the balance of hassle v. profitability v. demand and products are axed because the income they generate does not meet business criteria. This sealed the fate of the T27 and B110.
For some reason - perhaps due to the number of simultaneous licenced suppliers of the LS3/5a - the consumer perceived a price ceiling for the small box beyond which the demand dropped dramatically. In short, the public just wouldn't pay above a price point (of around ?600 UK pounds) when in fact the 'correct' full-costing retail price was over ?1000. In consequence, every time KEF quite reasonably passed on additional manufacturing costs to us licenced manufacturers of the complete speaker, we either couldn't pass them on to the consumer, or we refused to accept them. You can imaging that we and the other LS3/5a makers were in a pincer movement between ever increasing material costs and our customer's willingness to pay. Inevitably, KEF ceased production of the drivers, closed the UK hifi drive unit production lines, closed the factory, mothballed and/or wrote-off any residual component stock and that seemed to be that.
Commercially, the demise of the LS3/5a effected Harbeth negligibly because in as we'd edged up the ex-factory price we'd already seen LS3/5a sales demand drop to a low level and of course, the BBC had been buying the Harbeth P3/Monitor 20 for many years. So we were in the protected position that I'd anticipated; should either the KEF parts (for the LS3/5a) or SEAS parts (for the P3) dry up, we'd still have a mini-monitor to sell.
Unbeknown to Harbeth, KEF UK had an ongoing demand for some of the older-style woofers for earlier KEF Reference series, for then current KEF in-wall models and general spares associated with their long warranty period but these older 'classic' designs used tooling, glues and techniques which were not transferable to their impressive modern facilities in China. As a former KEF customer we had maintained good relations with them and as by now we had a long experience of making the Harbeth RADIAL drivers we offered to manufacture any 'classic' parts that KEF needed. A formal knowledge-transfer arrangement was made between KEF and Harbeth covering just these parts on a need-to-know basis. KEF assigned a semi-resident engineer at Harbeth to train us how to make their woofers, from their drawings and using parts free-issued from KEF and following closely the methods KEF had refined over many years. We were considered a 'foundry' for their woofer needs. Harbeth invoiced KEF solely for labour costs (with an agreed profit margin). KEF supplied Harbeth with bulk stock and later kits of parts to assemble a range of drive units using component stock salveaged from their stores from when they closed the UK woofer lines.
Purchase orders arrived at Harbeth driectly from KEF's purchasing department and we would check the stock of parts they'd free-issued to us, identify any shortages and then make, test, package and deliver complete woofers to them. Any material shortages were flagged and KEF took care of sourcing whatever we needed. The key point is this: we were not authorised to make any drive units until we received a covering Purchase Order from KEF otherwise we would have eaten into their stock and this would have got us into some trouble. Now, concerning the B110 woofer for the LS3/5a, although we were trained to make this part, and in fact did make about 20 pcs. to prove that we could, we did not receive additional POs from KEF and consequently KEF didn't free-issue components parts to make more.
During the five years that we were making various woofers for KEF I do not recall more than a handful of end-user request for B110s and I'm sure that KEF themselves only experienced a trickle of enquiries - not sufficient to warrant buying and pre-paying for bulk stock of necessary parts (from their overseas factories). We would have been pleased to manufacture the B110 here as it was equally profitable for us as any other KEF unit, but without POs and parts that was impossible.
I hope that this finally lays to rest the ill-founded rumour that Harbeth were instrumental in 'killing off the LS3/5a' as that is wholly untrue.
Alan A. Shaw
Designer, owner
Harbeth Audio UK
Originally Posted by Martin Buninga
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