Rogers won fame and fortune producing monitors for the BBC. The LS 3/5a is one of the classic models associated with Rogers. At 15Ω the LS 3/5s were not suited to the higher power levels I preferred, so I bought a pair of the commercial Studio 1 speakers in the 80s from Reigate HiFi. I think they cost around £450 at the time – an ex demo pair. Remember bringing along a portable Sony CD player with a selection of ‘test’ CDs including Simply Red and how the guy in the shop insisted the CD player is placed on a foam mat to prevent ‘feedback’ as he’d learnt applied to analogue turntables. How naive these folk were I thought.
The Studio 1s sounded fantastic with more depth to the bass than I’d heard before from 16 bit sources. Vinyl also sounded crisp with the brightness of the Doobie Brother’s 12 strings silky smooth. I only wish I could appreciate these sounds now.
Over the years I’ve lugged the Studio 1s from country to country, retaining the padded cardboard boxes they first came in. They’ve been driven from a variety of sources but never hard. My favourite source is the discrete Mosfet power amplifier built a few years before the Rogers. These pump out around 75w RMS – not too much for the Studio 1s that can suffer if subjected to much more.
Each speaker comes with a graph plot showing frequency response. There are three drive units and a bass port that combine to give a near flat ( ±2db) response between 45Hz and 20KHz. Much higher than I can now hear 🙁
The Studio 1s are now relegated to the den having been replaced by slim line Kefs and a sub for movies for every day use. It’s a shame as these speakers were made to be listened to.
Rear label from Rogers Studio 1 loudspeakers
For more details on the Rogers Studio 1 and other Rogers speakers see Mark Hennessey’s excellent Other Rogers Models.
Rogers Studio 1 Documents – PDFs
- Specification data sheet (scan) – Rogers Studio 1 Loudspeakers
- Specification data sheet (OCR text) – Rogers Studio 1 Loudspeakers – txt
- S40 / S55 Loudspeaker stands (scan) – Rogers S40 S55 Loudspeaker Stands
Update:
The Rogers Studio 1s are now back in daily use in our living room, driven from the Beocentre 9000 and sounding good. They provide the main sound monitors for the LG TV via an optical out and a DAC which provides the RCA analogue signals for the B&O. The most noticeable improvement over the KEF iQ50s is the bass response. There’s little or no need for a sub on most movies we stream. We still retain a 5.1 surround sound set up in the ‘analogue lounge’ which has the Rega Planar 3 and a modest pair of Q-Acoustic 2020i’s and centre as there’s no space for the Rogers.
30/08/2019 at 6:49 am
are you sure these are studio 1s mine have xlr connections not terminals
02/01/2021 at 11:46 am
Yes these are Studio 1s as per label. Rogers manufactured several versions of the Studio 1 and those with XLR connections aimed at professional market I guess. See Mark Hennessy’s page reprint of a review that appeared in Hifi Choice – https://www.markhennessy.co.uk/rogers/studio1_review.htm
25/01/2022 at 5:27 pm
Still fantastic speakers. I recently replaced the single electrolytic capacitor on each x-over leaving everything else unchanged. They’re more revealing (probably as they used to be in 1988) and with well-recorded material, I now realise that my streamer/dac is doing a better job than I thought! Well worth keeping these speakers in good shape and no need to change any of the other x-over components!
26/01/2022 at 9:20 am
Thanks for the suggestion. I did not realise Rogers used electrolytic caps in the filters – were they polarised I wonder? Directly coupled amplifiers will swing +/- so would be problematic if the electrolytics were polarised.
26/01/2022 at 4:00 pm
Rick, on my version of the Studio 1, all of the caps except one are the foil type so they will outlast me. I don’t know if the x-overs were the same throughout the production lifespan. I have read many forums where people have modded the x-overs and not all looked like mine. For myself, I prefer to listen to them as they were intended (or voiced) by the maker. That said….
The single axial electrolytic on each x-over is non-polar, branded Tosin (Japan), 6.8uF 50v, 20mm long, and of course no longer available. I could have used budget replacements of the same spec (which is probably what Rogers did!) but instead I fitted Mundorf 6.8uF 70v Plain caps which have a very low ESR. The end result is a more nuanced, clearer top end and even these old ears are hearing things that were previously inaudible. Apparently Mundorf have stopped making their Plain caps but they are still available form the HiFi Collective. ATB.
26/01/2022 at 5:32 pm
That’s interesting. I’ve never opened the Studio 1s but will do now and check. Unfortunately my Studio 1s have been relegated and I’ve not had chance to listen to them from a good source for several years. 50v seems too low – my Mosfet amps drive over 100 Vpp. Maybe I’ll try two 15uF in series and suffer the ESR if higher voltage bipolar are not available. Thanks for the info Hifi Collective do have some useful parts.
23/02/2025 at 10:49 pm
The 50v is an AC RMS rating so ignore the nonsense I mentioned about 100Vpp. Also placing two polarised caps in series is not a good idea in a crossover due to doubling ESR, instability and tolerance. Don’t know what I was thinking but blame in on CV!
13/02/2022 at 6:51 pm
Hi everyone
Thanks for this thread, which is really interesting to me.
I have a pair of Studio 1s that I bought new in the early 80s when I was 18 and have had ever since. A school friend of mine had a Saturday job at O’Brien’s HiFi in Wimbledon, so when I mentioned I wanted to buy a pair of speakers he got me in for listening tests. I remember auditioning LS7s, maybe some other makes, but the Studio 1s stood out for their extended bass and 3D sound stage. I believe Mike O’Brien was a shareholder of Swisstone Electronics at the time, so was keen to push the Rogers.
I did pop into the factory in Mitchum a few years later as I was local and the Studio 1s had been used a lot for teenage parties and I wanted Rogers to check them out for me, which they did at no charge.
I’m now heading fast towards 60 and have literally had the Studio 1s for the whole of my adult life, and would never want to be parted from them. I did work in professional audio in my earlier career and was fortunate enough to be able to build and then use a post-production studio for Philips where I bought a pair of LS5/9s and later a studio for a computer games company in Cambridge where I bought a pair of Studio 7ts, and I’ve hung about in other studios with more modern and expensive monitoring systems over the years, so am aware of the Studio 1s’ limitations, but I still love them.
I seem to have spent most of my life with limited funds and so never really had a decent amp of my own for the Rogers, although I’ve used them in various locations with decent amps. However, about 2 years ago I bought myself a Crown K2 and at last I can hear the Rogers in all their glory at home. I’m intrigued to see if your suggestion of replacing the electrolytic capacitor on each crossover will make a significant different, so I’ve ordered a couple of the Mundorf plain caps and will replace them myself. I’m excited to hear the results and will report back here once done, so thanks very much for the information.
I’m streaming 24 bit from Amazon mostly these days through a recently purchased ifi Zen Dac v2 balanced straight into the Crown. However, I have my unused Linn Sondek, also from the 80s, in its box in a cupboard, so getting that back up and running is likely to be my next project.
Any further tips about the Studio 1s or how to tweak the performance of the rest of my system very welcome. I also have a nice pair of Rogers LS1s which my dad bought about the same time as I bought the Studio 1s but that I have had for at least 20 years. I don’t tend to use them much, but they may get set up as a second system at some point. I guess I will look at replacing the caps in those as well then.
27/01/2022 at 2:41 pm
Rick, I see that Willys Hifi still has a supply of the Mundorf Plain caps if you’re tempted. Actually, they have a lot of good stuff for speaker DIY-ers!
https://willys-hifi.com/collections/electrolytic-capacitors-non-polarised/products/mundorf-ecap-ac-6-8uf-70v-bipolar-electrolytic-capacitor
I have a pair of AR17s in my shed and I’m tempted to look inside!
28/01/2022 at 9:47 am
Thanks Steve, Willys Hifi have an excellent selection of speaker parts and worth a shout out. UK based they ship worldwide too.
13/02/2022 at 7:13 pm
Sorry, correction, my other Rogers are LS2s, not LS1s – shows how much I use them!
13/02/2022 at 7:45 pm
Dear All
Apologies, I’m new to posting, and it seems my first post didn’t get sent to you, but my correction did. Here’s something similar to my first post again.
Thanks Rick and Steve for your thread.
I bought a pair of Studio 1s new in about 1983 when I was 18. I had a school friend who had a Saturday job at O’Brien HiFi in Wimbledon, so when I mentioned that I wanted to buy a pair of speakers, he got me in to audition a few. My dad had bought a pair of Rogers Ravensbrook speakers (paper cones and very different beasts) in the early 1970s so I was aware of Rogers, and I knew a BBC sound engineer quite well who was enthusiastic about them.
I remember auditioning LS7s and some other makes, but nothing compared to the Studio 1s for bass extension and 3D soundstage. I think I paid £360 for them, possibly £380. I believe Mike O’Brien was a shareholder of Swisstone Electronics at the time, so probably keen to push the Rogers, but they sold themselves.
A few years later, after I had lugged the Studio 1s round to lots of teenage parties, I took them into Rogers in Mitcham as I was local, and they checked them out for me for free.
In my early career I was lucky enough to design and then use a post production studio for Philips where I bought a pair of LS5/9s and then a studio for a computer games company in Cambridge where I bought a pair of Studio 7ts. I’ve also hung around in some top flight studios in London with more expensive and modern monitoring systems, so I’m aware of the Studio 1s limitations, but I still love them.
I have literally had the Studio 1s for my whole adult life, but until recently, I’ve never had a really decent amp to power them with at home, having never seemed to have much money for such things. A couple of years ago I bought a Crown K2 so at last I can hear the Rogers in all their glory.
I was aware that I should consider replacing the caps on the crossovers, but hadn’t really looked into it, so due to your thread I’ve now ordered the Mundorf plain caps from Willys HiFi and will fit them myself in the next few weeks. I’m excited to see if I can hear a difference and will report back here once done.
I tend to listen to 24 bit streams from Amazon these days. I recently bought an ifi Zen Dac v2 and have balanced outs directly into the Crown. However, I have my Linn Sondek (bought in 1986) in a box in a cupboard, which might be my next project.
I work in a school these days, and when the Music Department mentioned that they wanted to update their 1990s Sony cheap hifi about a year ago, I persuaded them to buy second hand the same setup as I have – they bought a pair of Studio 1s for £500 and a Crown K1 for £300. I got Unicol to make up some ceiling mounted cradles for the Rogers, and the Music Department were absolutely blown away by the sound, and the quality of the system for less than a £1k.
It’s nice to be able to introduce younger people who are serious about music to Rogers all these years later.
Thanks for your posts. Any further tips for replacing the Studio 1 caps welcome, or for tweaking my system more generally. If all goes well, I’ll probably replace the caps in the school’s Studio 1s as well, and in my Rogers LS2s which don’t get much use, but might form a second system at some point.
07/03/2022 at 5:54 pm
Hi Chris, thanks for your interesting post and apologies that it’s been stuck in a moderation bin. It sometimes happens the spam filter is triggered by mistake. I too have owned the Studio 1s since the mid 80s and they have followed me around Europe and still pretty much intact. The only damage has been our recent feline who’s decided to sharpen her claws on one of the frets! The glue had disintegrated so the cloth has come away but hopefully I’ll be able to fix. My Studio 1’s have survived a few parties driven from the mosfet PA and I’ve always been impressed with their bass response. It’s worth spinning up the Linn with Dark Side of the Moon to be amazed. Yes 24bit steams are all the rage but the anticipation and imperfections of analogue vinyl I still enjoy. I suspect had I not grown up with the memories of clicks and crackles on favourite album tracks I’d prefer clinical digital but I’ll never know.
10/04/2022 at 9:01 pm
I have a pair of Studio One’s which I also purchased in the early 1980’s. They had light duty except for the occasional Mahler fest. I have the original boxes and have made sure they were carefully stored. I may want to sell them as we are about to downsize to an apartment which space would not do them acoustical justice. Any suggestions relating to value or interested parties would be welcome. I am in NJ USA.
25/11/2022 at 10:13 am
I bought a pair of Export Monitors in 1983 for £300, partly based on the fact that the BBC had turned up with their Spendor units every time they’d recorded my radio programmes. They sounded great but didn’t like high volume levels. I called Rogers who said they could upgrade them to Studio 1 spec for £80 a pair. I made the trip up to Morden and left them for a couple of hours before coming back to have a listen – wow – and take them home.
At a somewhat drunken party shortly afterwards one of my ‘guests’ said that he’d ‘blow my speakers’ and cranked the amp up to max. He might have blown his ears but was most disappointed to find that the Studio 1s were just fine!
They’re still working just fine and to my ears they sound just as good as the day they were upgraded. I do most of my recording work using studio quality headphones these days, but still use the Studio 1s as a good reference monitor. Wouldn’t part with them, even though they’re selling for twice what I paid!
25/11/2022 at 8:12 pm
Interesting – I had no idea the Export Monitors could be upgraded. Have to admit my Studio 1s survived a few indulgent high volume parties with no ill effects. Thanks for your comment, it’s made me think if I should keep my pair instead of finding a new owner who’d appreciate them. We switched to Kef IQ50s to free up space in the living room and for the Yamaha AV receiver with separate sub they sounded okay. Now with a larger living room I should bring back the Studio 1s and spin up some old vinyl favourites…
10/01/2023 at 2:49 pm
I’ve had a thing for Rogers speakers for a couple of decades and have had a few of the better models here (Studio 1, Studio 2, LS3/5a, LS5/9, JR149, LS7t). Out of all of them I found the Studio 1 to be best suited to my room and tastes, and in fact am now on my third pair of them (I’m a self-confessed speaker tart so many things have come and gone over the years). I must try to remember to keep hold of this pair!
I’ll also have a peek inside at the crossover to see whether that electrolytic cap is original and therefore might need replacing. I’m not confident with a soldering iron so may get someone else to do the work, if needed.
10/01/2023 at 4:27 pm
Thanks for sharing. It’s worth reading the history behind the LS3/5 and their development at BBC Research in the seventies see – http://www.g4dcv.co.uk/ls35a/kingswood.html.
I was based just down the road from Kingswood Warren in Banstead at that time and grin when I think of my efforts to create a pair of ‘monitor’ speakers. I did have the benefit of father’s instruments – oscilloscopes and signal generators but not up to BBC lab’s resources. I used MDF as an enclosure rather than the far stronger ply the BBC chose. I made a mistake of selecting a 13″ x 8″ EMI woofer with a resonance I never managed to tame although the Celestion dome tweeters sounded sweet. The array of capacitors in the BBC’s design shows that multi-pole crossover filters were the key and I’d not learnt about Butterworth filters or understood the complex theory behind such designs at that time. My first attempt were far from monitors.
At least I learned how not to veneer the cabinets with an old iron and liberal applications of PVA which when tack dry curled the teak veneer wonderfully. Finding suitable grille fabric was a challenge along with acoustic wadding. I see now the BBC’s early design used smooth polyurethane foam for the inside acoustics and I used wadding from an old Brentford Nylon bedspread cover whose outer fabric had been shredded by the cat! At least the wadding will likely have survived longer than foam which seems to disintegrate after a couple of decades. And I was never convinced the smooth foam was quite as good at dampening as the polyester spun wadding.
04/04/2024 at 9:33 pm
Hi Rick,
Just to let you know that I have recently serviced and got my LP12 back up and running with a new Spartan 15 pre-amp. As you suggested, I have therefore been able to spin up Dark Side of the Moon and listen to my old vinyl through my Studio 1s. Not quite the quality of 24 bit masters, but still sounds great! I’ve got about 200 records to clean, so it’ll be a while before they are all done, but great fun listening to some of my teenage purchases that I haven’t listened to for many years!
Best wishes,
Chris
05/04/2024 at 10:09 am
Must be good to hear your old vinyl again and thank’s for sharing. Since this post we’ve moved my Studio 1s back into daily use and it’s made a big difference. All sources TV, CD, Phono are hooked through and we really notice how smooth the bass notes are. Would be interested to know which record cleaner you intend to use and if it works. I bought over 40 LPs recently to replace some of my worn-out teenage ones and some need a good clean. Also found a nice pair of Quad IIs that needed servicing, so I now have the Quads driven from my old Hitachi HCA750II with a Rega Ortofon MC100 in another room. Not up to your LP12 / Michael Fidler‘s Spartan 15 combo which must be near perfect! The Quad’s draw 250W and only pump out 15+15 so the super smooth 2nd harmonics come at some cost to power for a long listen.
08/04/2024 at 6:43 pm
Hi Rick,
I’m using Vinyl Vac Concentrate Cleaner using the method outlined by TheDeeVee on YouTube https://youtu.be/fAK3B81dtvU?si=Ht5jbOlNmozgtR8n although lots of other people are recommending similar methods.
I bought the Vinyl Vac tube and a cheap £30 wet vacuum cleaner that I only use to clean my vinyl. For most of the albums that I have cleaned so far (only about 30) it makes a considerable difference to those that were noisy before cleaning. Some of them sound like new, but a few (which I guess are the most worn or dirty) clean up a bit, but are still quite noisy, usually on the first track on each side.
It will probably take me several years to clean all my records at the rate I am going, but it’s fun listening to the results!
08/04/2024 at 9:26 pm
Thanks Chris, I’ll have to try the Vinyl Vac tube and cleaner. Watched TheDeeVee and sceptic in me thought why not play the LP before and after to demonstrate how effectively it cleans? And why does he clean new records and switch off comments? I remember trying to clean an LP I spilt beer on in the seventies. I did try purified water for car batteries and it was still very noisy. The idea of vacuuming away the water and residue using surfactants makes sense. However, microfibre cloths washed in tap water would seem to contain way too many particles and microfibres to use after the vacuum so I will try with just the vac.
09/04/2024 at 7:03 am
Hi Rick,
I very lightly wipe with one microfibre cloth first, then wash with the cleaning solution, then very lightly wipe off the excess with my ‘wash’ microfibre cloth (a different one to the one I use at the start), then rinse twice, each time vacuuming off the distilled water. I don’t usually wipe the record after that as there doesn’t seem to be any need. I only tend to use the rinse microfibre cloth on the rare occasions where I get water on the label or there are still a few small droplets of water around the outer edge. Having only cleaned 30 records so far, I’ve just shaken my cloths after use, but I agree that I don’t think I will be washing them in tap water. Instead, after 50 or 100 LPs, I think the cloths will get washed and used for a new purpose, and I’ll replace them with new cloths for the record cleaning. I bought a pack of about 8 cloths, so I have a few in reserve.
I also think that I may try the wood glue method on records that I clean with the above method, but still sound very crackly. But that’s for a future phase. I’ve got plenty of work ahead as it is!
09/04/2024 at 7:32 am
That regime using a separate wipe and rinse cloth and replace with new sounds good. Do you just clean one side at a time to avoid getting the second side wet after cleaning the first – or is it possible to keep the base platter completely dry? Found there are before and after demos too – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB17BRtqeJQ
09/04/2024 at 7:59 am
I tend to clean Side 1, then Side 2 immediately afterwards. As I only tend to clean a couple of records at one sitting, I don’t find that the other side of the record gets wet most of the time. Occasionally, if it does get wet a little and it’s the side I’ve already cleaned, I just very lightly wipe off the water with my rinse cloth. This has only really happened when I’ve cleaned, say, 4 records in a row. Contrary to the online advice of using draw liner material as a mat, I’m just using a spare felt record mat that I had lying about, so this does absorb the water and get wet if I wash too many LPs in one go. If that happens I just stop and hang it up to dry. I should probably move to a different mat, but currently that seems to be an unnecessary expense. Last night I cleaned my (actually my parents’) copy of Saturday Night Fever, and Calypso Breakdown by Ralph McDonald sounds amazing!
09/04/2024 at 8:11 am
Thanks, that’s useful to know. I must try on a Dudley Moore Trio LP that’s very noisy and needs a good clean so a good test.
22/05/2024 at 7:57 pm
For noisy records, I’m now waiting for 5 minutes on a timer with the cleaning solution on the vinyl before using the paint edger pad (brush). I then turn the record 10 times in each direction under the brush before rinsing. This has cleaned up quite a few records that were still noisy using my previous method.
23/05/2024 at 2:55 pm
That’s useful to know. I’ve still to get all the kit together but have just found a lazy Suzy.
23/02/2025 at 2:56 pm
Going back to the crossovers:
I opened one of my speakers up today and there’s a blue cap marked 93-8405, is this the one that would be best replaced with the Mundorf cap linked to previously? Thanks.
23/02/2025 at 9:43 pm
Yes, the axial blue cap is either 6.8uF or 7uF (MFD) bi-polar with 50v AC rating. The 8405 is likely the date code 1984 5th month.
24/02/2025 at 8:28 am
Perfect thanks Rick, I’ll order a couple of those today.