With that serial number on Kan you should have Hiquephone teeeters and the later Kef B110 b Woofer
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Which serial nr range is it to look out for in your opinion? 
Another small speaker, very similar to the Castle, and as well finished, was the Cura CA-5 speaker (which had siblings CA-10 and CA-21 and even a CA-30) which were made in Farnborough, UK, and were at the time expensive. The speakers were made in the late 1990’s just for a few years, and the company went bust.
Not much of a picture, and the Cura logo is lost.
The Cura C-5 is an Infinite Baffle design with Vifa PL14WJ08 04 and SEAS 20TFF H830 8ohm drive units.
The bigger siblings were ported designs
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Serial Number up to 24000,those had Scanpeak tweeters and Kef B110 a.
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Thanks - I couldn’t remember but yes those are the ones! Lovely finish - a real cut above the typical vinyl wrap on most budget speakers of the day. They looked far more expensive than they were.
As I recall the sound tended very much towards polite and refined rather than forward and dynamic. Which with typical budget ancillaries of the day was no bad thing. So they certainly weren’t the most exciting listen but on the other hand they were very easy to just forget about and enjoy.
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Neither could I… Had to deploy Google…
I never heard them, though. I got a Rega Planar 2, then an A&R A60E, from a dealer - who also sold Linn & Naim. He didn’t stock Castle speakers…
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I have an old pair of original Rogers that I got from a local theatre in the 90s. I really need to do something better with them, but any amp recommendations under a grand would be welcomed.
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A SuperUniti….
Both source and amp is important and doesn’t need to be expensive to perform.
Your budget stretch to new Rega IO or Brio, maybe a Nait.
Thanks @PerF. I have a Chord Mojo 2 as the source connected to a few different things as and when. A Nait would be great if I could find a good one for the money.
Thanks @davidhendon I hadn’t considered one of those. I’ll admit that I had to look up what it was. They seem like great value now. Do you know if they work with the current Naim (& Focal) app?
I have two of them myself and both are working with a different pair of LS3/5As. They are great value and sound excellent I think.
Yes of course they do work well with the current Focal/Naim app. It’s the legacy streaming system though so great for local streaming and i-radio, works with Tidal and Spotify. But doesn’t work with Qobuz and probably won’t work with Tidal Hi res (due to hardware limitations).
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I’ve read from someone that worked for the BBC that the LS3/5a’s were often used in small offices there stuck on a shelf, driven by either an A&R A60 or NAD3020, to monitor broadcasts. So perhaps your current arrangement with the Denon amp is pretty authentic. Just stick a BBC logo on the wall to complete it!
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I could even just start working from the back of a van!
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” These are not thin-sounding. In fact, they produce an overall balance similar to that of a pair of large systems when they (the Rogers) are located on 30"-high stands, right out near the center of the floor. (This bass-balance design is consistent with the BBC’s recent research findings which showed that the smoothest bass response is obtained when a speaker is as far as possible from room boundaries.)
It is because these speakers are so well-balanced when they are out in the room that they may well produce too much bass when placed against a wall, particularly when located near the junction between three room surfaces. In corners, they are (in most rooms) intolerably boomy because they are designed for out-of-corner placement, and because that location excites the maximum number and amplitude of standing-wave resonances (footnote 3) in the room.
The close proximity of room surfaces (or, worse yet, of a box or shelf under the speakers) also causes diffraction interference—the chopping of deep holes in the frequency response due to selective cancellation of certain frequencies
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Definitely not the recommended spot for them, however, the most common feedback I get is that it sounds amazing.
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I agree.
Yes it’s well-known that the LS3/5a’s require a decent amount of space behind them to avoid a bloated bass. That is when used as a hi-fi speaker playing music - which is of course not at all what they were designed for.
When used within their design parameters as speech monitors presumably they were fine close to room boundaries as speech doesn’t contain any bass.
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They can sound quite chesty though, on male speech, if you have them too close to other things.
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Look for an amp that is as electrically similar to a tube amp as you can find.
The crossover in LS3/5As is not simple, and that in the 15Ohms versions has autotransformers that help making the impedance phase pattern welcome for tube amps.
Many tube amps have a high-ish output impedance and, consequently, a low damping factor. Such is the case with old-school Naim power amps, but the similarity ends here as far as timbre in concerned.
In my opinion, an amp with not much power, a low damping factor and a ‘warm’ voicing should be fine with LS3/5as. The low sensitivity of the speakers is much less an issue than their ‘tube-friendliness’ is an advantage.
Best with your quest,
M.
A good hint IMHO. One of the two times I heard LS3/5as it was at TopAudio in Milano, the speakers were the KEF version and they were powered by a small Creek integrated in a large room. Very fine.
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Leak Stereo 20…
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