Active Kef LS50

[erniejade]

Finally showed up!  

 

Wouldn't the app sound better then airplay? 

[DarwinOSX]

5 hours ago, erniejade said:

Finally showed up!  

 

Wouldn't the app sound better then airplay? 

Possibly but I should try it. 

[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.  

[erniejade]

Tidal is now skipping tracks, pausing, goes 2 tracks past the next song.   Back to using my Lumin 

[DarwinOSX]

Once again Kef puts out garbage software with half the things not working including the so called fixes.

I've had mine since December and I think I'm finally tired of all the usability and software issues.  Kef support simply does not reply to questions either.  I see no indication Kef is going to get their act together either.

Seriously thinking of replacing them with a receiver and ELAC Uni-fi UF5 speakers and I won't ever buy Kef again.

I'm posting everyplace that sells them and has a review to want others to know what they are getting into before they buy them.

[erniejade]

Outside of the app issues, on my Lumin or laptop USB to the speaker, they sound wonderful.   

[DarwinOSX]

2 minutes ago, erniejade said:

Outside of the app issues, on my Lumin or laptop USB to the speaker, they sound wonderful.   

No doubt they sound great.  Usability sucks.

[DarwinOSX]

4 hours ago, erniejade said:

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! 

 

 

They do claim it fixes using other sources but of course that doesn't work either.

[DarwinOSX]

21 hours ago, erniejade said:

Finally showed up!  

 

Wouldn't the app sound better then airplay? 

Ok I just played Take 5 from the Kef app and Tidal and then from Apple Music via AirPlay. 

Apple Music and AirPlay sounds much better. Louder and fuller. 

The Apple TV is connected to my tv by hdmi and the Kefs to the tv by optical. 

[Arcus]

9 minutes ago, DarwinOSX said:

Ok I just played Take 5 from the Kef app and Tidal and then from Apple Music via AirPlay. 

Apple Music and AirPlay sounds much better. Louder and fuller. 

The Apple TV is connected to my tv by hdmi and the Kefs to the tv by optical. 

Well, that's disappointing. There was no mention of Tidal capability via the latest firmware update so what's the point of adding it to the app? 

[DarwinOSX]

8 hours ago, Arcus said:

Well, that's disappointing. There was no mention of Tidal capability via the latest firmware update so what's the point of adding it to the app? 

Yes it is.  I wasn't expecting it to sound better let alone much better than from the app.

[gbryant]

Here's my LS50w with my 2012 Mac Pro and NHT sub... I think I need a picture or 2 ...lol, looks less bare in person...

 

Sounds excellent! And better every day...

[erniejade]

Nice clean loiking setup.  

[erniejade]

Just found out they also have a firmware fix out now besides the app 

http://us.kef.com/product-support

 

I will try loading this up tonight. I am not sure why they aren't sending any kind of notification to their customers of this.  Heck if it wasn't for this and other forums, I wouldn't have known they even had the app update!

 

[DarwinOSX]

On 10/31/2016 at 4:17 PM, witchdoctor said:

Abtr said:

Some may argue that it's not a good idea to build a DAC inside a speaker because of vibrations.. [/QUOTI

 

It seems more and more active speakers are going that route. I prefer active speakers with no dac. You can keep a good speaker for years but dacs get outdated more quickly.

This was mentioned a few weeks ago on another forum.

Mac version is supposed to be out at some point too.

Some users reported their speakers crackle or are staticky after this update.

[erniejade]

I was just reading that on the KEF forum in facebook. I asked one of the people if his got solved and he said no but, no one else chimed in saying they did the firmware update and if they had issues with the update.  I know just doing the app outside of adding tidal, didn't do anything for the pausing and skipping.  I am afraid to now do the firmware update based upon what I have read.

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1329921497024500/

[DarwinOSX]

1 hour ago, erniejade said:

I was just reading that on the KEF forum in facebook. I asked one of the people if his got solved and he said no but, no one else chimed in saying they did the firmware update and if they had issues with the update.  I know just doing the app outside of adding tidal, didn't do anything for the pausing and skipping.  I am afraid to now do the firmware update based upon what I have read.

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1329921497024500/

 

I don't have Facebook but yeah Kefs support of these speakers continues to disappoint.

[Arcus]

I've done both the firmware update and the app update. No problems playing via optical w/ Apple Airport using AirPlay.

[erniejade]

Are you having any hiss or cracking sound as the person on face book is having?  

[Arcus]

42 minutes ago, erniejade said:

Are you having any hiss or cracking sound as the person on face book is having?  

Nope. I definitely would have mentioned that.

[feelingears]

On 6/3/2017 at 0:29 PM, DarwinOSX said:

Once again Kef puts out garbage software with half the things not working including the so called fixes.

I've had mine since December and I think I'm finally tired of all the usability and software issues.  Kef support simply does not reply to questions either.  I see no indication Kef is going to get their act together either.

Seriously thinking of replacing them with a receiver and ELAC Uni-fi UF5 speakers and I won't ever buy Kef again.

I'm posting everyplace that sells them and has a review to want others to know what they are getting into before they buy them.

 

THANK YOU. (Assuming your post is legit.) I just deleted a long diatribe here about crummy software and lousy user experiences. I will be sure to try before I buy, and maybe just buy used if it really is that bad. I also refuse to support incomplete products and poor software.

 

This makes me appreciate good Schiit all the more. Uptone and Sonore also come to mind. But hey, we can hope KEF aspire to improvement rather than, say, Nikon-like arrogance (a notable non-audio example of documented poor service over the years).

 

[realhifi]

They should have just made these an active version of the LS50. A decent remote for source selection and volume control and called it good until they get their software up to level of Roon or Sonos. It appears they have bitten off more than they should have with these terrific sounding speakers. 

[DarwinOSX]

7 hours ago, feelingears said:

 

THANK YOU. (Assuming your post is legit.) I just deleted a long diatribe here about crummy software and lousy user experiences. I will be sure to try before I buy, and maybe just buy used if it really is that bad. I also refuse to support incomplete products and poor software.

 

This makes me appreciate good Schiit all the more. Uptone and Sonore also come to mind. But hey, we can hope KEF aspire to improvement rather than, say, Nikon-like arrogance (a notable non-audio example of documented poor service over the years).

 

Why would my post not be legit...