Which LS3/5a?

A little off topic, but I tried LS3/5As back in the 70s.  While they sounded good, I ended up with the Rogers JR149s with the cylindrical metal enclosure.  I believe the drivers may have been the same or similar but found the JR149s to be much less boxy sounding and to have incredible imaging.  I regretted selling them to a friend in the 80s.  They are still sounding great in his second home.

I gather you're committed to a new pair and the used ones around can be very rough.  Just my somewhat related experience from way back.  My apologies for intruding on the OP.

Herb thank you for your detailed replied.  It is certainly nice to know there are some valid choices among the current  made LS35a 's.  Btw I plan on  buying new unless I find a great deal on a local speaker.  

Riaa,  if you could post your thoughts once you breakin the Graham and the Rogers SE I would appreciate it.  I know the Graham has a great following and I am anxious to hear more from users of the SE.  

proud owner of two sets of vintage 15ohm swisstone rogers one on top of the other,  pushed in series by a BAT VK 75SE + 50SE. Voice coming out of it is so real it spooks me and the cat.

Hello, I have collected LS3/5a speakers for the last 30 yrs.  I have owned numerous pairs and still have a few.  Currently, I have a pair of Rogers setup on a tube amplifier with 805 power tubes 45 watts per channel. I have a friend who is very serious and deep into hifi audio and is mostly into current production items, not vintage components. He’s been to lots of hifi shows and dealer demo rooms.  He owns expensive components along with IC cables that retail for $2,500.  He says, my Rogers setup is one of the best sounds he’s ever heard regardless of price.  I’ve never heard Falcon speakers but I did purchase a pair of their crossovers 5 yrs ago.  I have personally found, the best sounding LS3/5a speakers ever produced use the Rifa capacitors in their crossovers.  They are silver/blue looking.  Every other LS3/5a speaker that uses other caps do not sound as transparent.  

BTW, only the 15ohm versions were the best sounding and only 15ohm used the Rifa capacitors.  There was only a few years in production where Rogers, Chartwell, Goodman, Audio Master, Ram used the Rifa caps.  Rogers used them in the late 1970’s. Rogers early production LS3/5a speakers are not the best sounding but are the most valuable.  Since I am mostly a Rogers LS3/5a collector, I do not know the time period where other manufacturers used the Rifa caps inside their LS3/5a speakers but I have seen it in some of there models.  Years ago, Chartwells were highly sought after by Asians and I believe it was because some, not all Chartwells contained the Rifa caps.  I was a member of a forum many years ago put together by the son of one of the engineers who designed the BBC LS3/5a and we talked about this issue 25yrs ago of why do some LS3/5a’s sound better than others.