Active Kef LS50

[erniejade]

I'm happy to see more people going past the bad app ( music portion) and checking these speakers out. I have a smaller room and so far out of everything I have tried, the LS50Wireless has sounded the best. The advanced settings on the app is ok. I just wish you could use it while using another source instead of the built in wifi to help fine tune your system but, after a few flipping back and forth, I got mine dialed in about a month ago.

 

One caution, once you have those settings hammered out in the app, take a screen shot of it. If the speaker looses power ( AC) it will revert back and you have to go through all of the settings again!

[erniejade]

It depends on a few things. If your talking about the built in wireless or usb or toslink into the speaker, no idea but, if your using the rca in, a Schiit sys would do the trick. Its bi-directional so instead of using it 2 in and one out,  

[erniejade]

They do have a subwoofer out and the app has a volume and crossover built into it. One thing I like about this is the settings are in 5hz instead of 20 like a lot of HT receivers. 

[erniejade]

You can only change the settings when on the wireless portion is activated but, once you set it, it will keep the settings and work with the USB, Optical, rca and Bluetooth inputs. I have expressed this before in other threads or forums but, I WISH you could still control the sub and treble settings when using the other inputs to help compensate for poor recordings.

 

To me, the speakers really have a great sound to them and even though it is the same driver as the LS50, they don't sound like the regular LS50's! They do have a lot of the same qualities but, much more bloom and not ringy when pushed like the regular ones get.

[erniejade]

Don't be afraid to mess around with the advanced settings including the distance.   As far as the high and low pass settings,  every room is different so there isn't a good answer   play around with it and see where it sounds the most balanced to you.    Mine I have on normal for the bass setrings and 75hz.   

[erniejade]

My room is 10x11 feet. I also prefer the subwoofer with them.    Congrats on thespeaker.   Nht subs are very mmusical 

[erniejade]

12x17  the bass can be nice in that room with the kef.  In my room, I have a 2 foot deep 6 foot long cutout on the 11 foot wall that I call a bass suckout.  The sub with my small of a room should be overkill if it wasn't for the suckout! 

[erniejade]

Agreed. For the $, they are darn good. well, good enoigh for me to sell off the Mcintosh mc402,  Joule Electra LAP-150A pre on down to the speakers and cables and replace all of that with the KEF.  

 

I keep flipping back and forth on the crossover.  75 hz and 85 hz.   Classic rock on the 85hz setting  kind of gives it more of a kick from the sub but with jazz, 75hz.  I did try 80 but for some reason, I didn't care for it as much  but  my room is challenged.  

[erniejade]

Can you go to iTunes and try loading it on your MAC?   I have it on my ipad and cell phone both but having tried it on the home computer.

[erniejade]

I just use the nice small remote that comes with the speakers for volume.  

[erniejade]

15 hours ago, DarwinOSX said:

I've been looking  at this and the Bluseound Node 2 which was also give me Roon AND MQA through Tidal. 

I tried a node2 for about a week and returned it. To me, the soundstage shrunk several feet and it sounded constricted. This followed using the built in dac or my external dac. My wife and I both agreed the laptop going through a w4s recovery to the dac sounded much better. For the money, it is a good unit but, if you want something that is a little better for the same money especially using an  external dac , try the Aries mini. You can put a hard drive inside of it, output from USB right to the Kef, supports tidal but, you need to have a Mac product to run the software.

[erniejade]

I almost forgot, if you do go with the Mini, try an upgraded power supply.

[erniejade]

When changing the sub settings, you have to be on wifi but it does carry to other sources and when turning it off. If you loose power to the speakers however, you will have to reset up everything from the wifi on down to your settings. I upgraded power cables on mine and that's how I found out.

[erniejade]

4 hours ago, bunno77 said:

Is it possible or is anyone currently streaming Tidal etc to these via Linn Kazoo or Bubble Upnp?

In my livingroom rig( Pioneer sc27 HT receiver) I am using a chromecast audio, optical out to the receiver, using bubbleUpnp and tidal. It works well.

[erniejade]

Ya know what, I have not tried it direct to the speakers! I will do that tonight.    I have a Lumin D1 that I control with my ipad going to the KEF but, I never thought of trying it via BubbleUpnp on the wifi end.  

 

I have used the kef app to my NAS running minimserver. It finds it all but, its buggy with pauses, dropouts, and just all out frustrating.  The Lumin going to it sounded better and never any drop outs.

[erniejade]

Bubble can stream right to the speakers. My cell is old ( Samsung galaxy s3 ) so it chugged a little with uncompressed stuff but tidal streamed no problem. No problem with flac either. Just the uncompressed wav took it a few seconds to kick in.  After it started, no problem at all. 

[erniejade]

Ouch!   That is a huge difference! Do they have any kind of import tax? Otherwise maybe a distributor in the USA can ship a set for several hundred less? 

 

[erniejade]

Agree! IOS as of last night on my ipad has not said they have an upgrade this.

 

[erniejade]

On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 4:21 AM, Tait said:

So I borrowed a pair of my uncle's Russ Andrews 500 Series Powerkords to power the KEFs and....very impressed! Currently using Russ Andrews Classic series powerkords (2 below the 500 series) but the difference was startling!
More separation, tighter bass, improved details/dynamics. Just a greater sense of being involved with the music.
Stevie Ray Vaughan 9 minute epic Tin Pan Alley was a real eye opener!

One problem.....the price. At £500 each they aren't cheap! Ha!

What's the going rate for a kidney these days!?

 

I tried a set of wireworld Electra cords  on the Kef and actually wound up with Cullen cords and liked them better. They seemed to hug the plug better and not as loose feeling. Both were a noticeable difference over the stock cords.

 

Anyone try using this via Ethernet instead of wifi?  I normally use a Lumin D1 going to the RCA but, I was thinking how it might sound or if the app would be less glitch using Ethernet.

 

Speaking of Ethernet, anyone change out the stock cat6 between speakers?  Any improvement?  I have been on the fence on changing this because I don't want the speakers to sound different from each other.

[erniejade]

The Cullen Cables I am using we not expensive and build quality is excellent. When I emailed Patrick about what I had, he recommended his Gold series cable but, instead of using the 10 gauge,12. I think they were something like $139 each.

 

I am tempted to put the app on my cell since its a droid and see how it does or what it looks like.

[erniejade]

On ‎5‎/‎31‎/‎2017 at 5:54 PM, [email protected] said:

Tidal is working over WiFi.  However the GUI is limited (e.g. missing sorting on albums). 

MASTERS decoding is not included (yet?)

 

Sitting back and listening via my iPad app

 

I took a look last night and I did not see it. I hit the updates or show updates available and it didn't come up for me on IOS.

[erniejade]

Finally showed up!  

 

Wouldn't the app sound better then airplay? 

[erniejade]

Played with Tidal on the app. On the front it does show favorites so that's how I can tell the higher res MQA stuff since I put a lot on my faves.  I think the need to make that front of it more like lumin where you can see masters tab and on the pictures if it's MQA, you can see the MQA symbols.   

 

I thought this fix was supposed to be able to control the setting from other sources?  Soon as I go to rca or optical, it says no speakers.   Does it work for anyone?  

 

The good is the pausing between songs has stopped!   And tidal plays and sounds good! 

 

[erniejade]

I take it back. Playing from my nas  glitches. It paused and changed tracks in the middle of a song a few times. It also is still starting a song, pause, place a second, pause, and then play the song.   I do not have this problem on my lumin or bluenode

[erniejade]

While I am complaining, I would also like to see shortcuts across the top to go from tidal, media servers, faves, home, and speaker settings instead of hitting back 6 times.