Kef LS50 Wireless review.

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erniejade

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I have a set of the LS 50 wireless on loan / demo from my favorite local audio shop Holm Audio. I am going to break this down into a a couple of categories. 1. Wants 2. App rating, 3 sound quality.

1. To have this as some type of all in one solution for home audio, it needs to have a couple more things. 1 another set of rca jacks. Let's say an average audiophile would have a CD player, maybe a streamer, maybe a turntable, well you only have one set of rca's so you would need to choose. 2, coax input. 3 wifi to be able to do more then 96k. 4 dsd via USB and the USB not be capped out at 196.

2. The app has a good concept but it's not ready for prime time in my opinion. Actually I am surprised it was released. Huge issue 1 that would completely stop me from picking a set of them up, if you change the input from the wireless feed, it completely drops connection to the app! Unless I am doing something wrong, I was shocked it would completely drop going from the wireless feed to using the rca's. not only can you not turn the volume up and down once it disconnects, it seems to not use the dsp settings until you go back to the wireless! I did not try it with USB or the toslink only with the rca. This would be my number one turn off and would prevent me from buying them. If it's a setting somewhere, I could not find it and since it's Sunday, no phone support.
Within the app, it has a nice dsp setting where you can adjust how close to wall however, it's a line that has the min/max distance but not actuall numbers where you are. You have to guess. It has an electric crossover that a nice sectable range ( not just 60-80 hz).
It picked up my western digital nas without any issues however, my nas uses twonky and this app did not want to read the files too well. On the same nas I have minimserver running on a desktop pointing to the nas. This reads perfectly within the app.
I could not get my iPad. I kept getting an error that would not let it connect to an unsecured device. I gave up after 20 min and tried my Droid cell. My cell is a galaxy 3 ( old) and it connected without issues.
Playing music, it seemed to keep getting stuck or glitch between songs. Sometimes it could not advance. There is a few more things that seemed buggy to me but I won't go into them. I think I have slammed the app enough.

3. Since I could not use my lumin due to the disconnect of the wireless, I did all testing via its wireless using uncompressed wav rips. After I got the dsp and subwoofer setting where I liked them, the speakers basically took everything I threw at them and came out with flying colors. They sound darn good! The soundstage is wide and extends beyond the physical location of the speakers. Lots of texture as well as dept to the speaker. The sweet spot is much wider then my psb, legacys, mythos sts, bryston mini T, or just about every other speaker I have had in this room. I don't have real stands right now and they are sitting on stools. Not even the right height or anything but they still sound fantastic. They aren't a one trick poly either. They did good on Sabbath on down to Miles Davis. Piano is spooky good. No matter what volume I gave them, they kept their composure. The midrange and highs are smooth and detailed. I like bass so tried the settings 40,50,60,(you get the picture) and for my room, 75 was the magic number.

Hopefully they will get the app issues figured out quick. The app issues would keep me from purchasing a set even for a second system.
 
Couple of quick things....

- Yes, the app does drop out when using an input other then WIFI. KEF designed it this way.....and the included remote will then take over for volume control/etc.

- The DSP settings are saved at what you have them set last while in WIFI mode.

- I do agree that that a digital coax would have been nice, but a good number of CD players still have toslink out, so this gives you the chance to connect there.

- There is some talk going around that KEF is working towards upgrades of the app (including DSD/ROON/MQA), but this is likely just hearsay at this point...

- I also agree that the speakers sound flat out amazing!!
 
I did not realize there was a physical remote. I was not given one so I had no idea. I still think you should be able to change the dsp it in the fly if using rca, USB, or whatever and not just wireless. i will have to ask Tuesday when they are opened again. The app for some reason half the time would not advance to the next track or when it did, it would studder for a second or two before it plays. My iPad also would not connect to it. There might be a way around it but until I can call support or ask the store, I have no idea what the workaround is.

I would also also want the app to have Tidal included. Otherwise I need to plug in my lumin or laptop to run Tidal. I prefer the lumin since I can change songs or search for more music using my iPad over standing over the laptop.

The subwoofer integration is beautiful and seamless. The speakers are not picky on placement and disappear in the room. I am putting this up against what you see in my signature btw! That's quite an accomplishment. They just need to get the app right and I might buy a set.
 
I almost forgot, my sacd player (tube) does not have toslink. Now dynaudio has a hub link that looks promising and has more inputs on it. Not sure of the sound will be as good as the Kef though.
 
erniejade said:
I almost forgot, my sacd player (tube) does not have toslink. Now dynaudio has a hub link that looks promising and has more inputs on it. Not sure of the sound will be as good as the Kef though.
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I don't think so. The KEF is a very special design.

Yes, the in shop demo I did was with CD player and I had the remote for changing tracks.
I am not that worried about the app, as that is easily upgradable over time and Kef is a big, well established company.
 
Thanks Winson. I just put my psb t back into play with the rest of the system. I think I like the kef better. I have gone through a lot of gear with my faves being Carver Amazing and Legacy Focus when I had a larger room but in this smaller 9x11 room, the kef wireless seem to make me not miss my huge speakers. Now I have had on loan the regular ls50 about 2 years ago and I thought they got a bit ringy fast even with warm tubes. This is not the case with the wireless version.
 
I have had these speakers for a few weeks now. Exclusively streaming Tidal using my laptop into W4S Recovery into USB input and they sound terrific. It's ridiculous that we can't stream Tidal over WIFI/AirPlay (but can over AptX Bluetooth) and also a shame there is no native Tidal app built into them. Hopefully these issues will be remedied soon.
 
I tried running my Lumin d1 via rca but it actually sounded muffled. I changed over to the internal wifi / native app playing the same file and it sounded much better. I will try the usb next. RDSChicago, running tidal via your laptop, do you have a way to change songs remotely or you have to get up each time you want to skip a track or a music change?

The other thing that does bug me is not being able to adjust the dsp when running through the rca and having to use another device to turn it up or down.

Because they sound that good, I am almost considering them still.
 
Ernie, with the remote control that comes with the speakers (you should get the remote from Holm to try it), you can change songs and advance to the next track (or reverse to the previous track). The remote is also used to change inputs, mute the volume and increase/decrease volume. In Tidal, you can also play the Master/MQA tracks for higher resolution.
 
Got ya. I will give them a ring Tuesday. Actually when i was there to pick up something else and I figured while I was there to check them out. I actually was not planning on bringing anything home outside of the plugs I was picking up but they sounded too good to be true in the store. After getting them home, I quickly found out they sound just as good!. Since I was there just before closing, im sure it was overlooked.
 
Ernie, did Holm have the Kef stands to go with them? They just came out. I haven't seen them in the flesh yet but was thinking about picking up a pair to match my white speakers.
 
RDSChicago said:
Ernie, did Holm have the Kef stands to go with them? They just came out. I haven't seen them in the flesh yet but was thinking about picking up a pair to match my white speakers.
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We had them in Europe weeks ago. I dont recall them being anything special (in the sense that quality generic stands would work just as well). Perhaps there was a provision to hide cables, but I dont recall.

In any case, I am glad we all agree that they sound "too good" for the price and size. LoL

In terms of subs, I think TBI Sound Magellan powered subs (used) will work well. Easy to dial in and ultra fast.
They only make passives now with outboard amp. http://www.tbisound.com/dsp_products_subwtbi200.asp
http://www.tbisound.com/dsp_products_subwmagvisu.asp
 
They did not have the stands on display but they did tell me they are available. I have the gray ones on loan. They look sharp. Gray or white like yours I can see how someone would want a color coordinated stand.
I have a old Velodyne SPL1200 sealed box that I had re-capped 5 or 6 years ago that I hooked up to it. The app made it really easy to sit in your normal spot and fine tune it for your taste. I do like you can choose to set a low and high pass and 5 hz at a time where some are 20 hz at a time. That made fine tuning it for your taste beautiful.

I smoked a pork shoulder yesterday and it took about 16+ hours so I had a lot of time to listen and play around with them. Not once at any volume did I get ear fatigue nor did I say to myself, if it had tube this or that to make it sound better. I thought I would have a hard time getting used to not having tubes running but, I didn't. I usually go though a preamp a year basically for the past 25+ years. I have tried SS preamps many times but always wound up going right back to tubes. Not once did I miss a tube. That takes quite a bit for me to admit especially on a $2200 all in one product!
 
Quite an impressive endorsement, Ernie! Products like these makes one wonder why so many of us go crazy and spend gobs of money on our hobby! Talk about reaching a point of diminishing returns!!
 
I liked the powered LS50 as I commented in another thread on them. And I agree they sound exceedingly good at the price. However, don't dismiss other brands for audition, especially one like Dynaudio. In myopinion every model I've heard has been excellent and they were in the powered/wireless market way before KEF. I'm not sure which model would be close to the LS50 price point, Dyn has several models of powered/wireless speakers.

Sauk also showed an impressive offering around $2500.00.

If my catalog was digital files, this type of set up would be great. Most of my friends, if not totally gone computer, at least has the set up as main with maybe keeping the turntable. I understand the convenience but still for some reason have no desire for it.
 
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