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Active Kef LS50


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can you white out the furniture and cut off the irrelevant parts of the diagram?

 

also post what wall treatments you are willing to do?

 

if not finished yet, there are some good ideas on how to do the sheetrock and spaces between studs too...

 

I'm mainly interested in knowing whether the room is likely to be too big for the speakers, even with a listening position fairly close to the speakers. That's my concern. I'm not willing to do any modifications, primarily because my wife is involved (no tolerance for this kind of thing) and because this is a house I use for only three or four months of the year. The house is in Canada, but I spend about nine months of the year in Brasil in our other home. I'm not willing to break the bank on the Canadian home. Also, the basement is newly finished, so it is just an empty room with carpeting at the moment.

To be honest, I do most of my listening with headphones and DACS in both locations, but I want something decent when I don't want to use headphones. I'm also interested in the the LS50 active speakers because I am a big user of streaming services and Roon, and have a fairly large collection of high-res digital music on a NAS. My previous experiences have all been with tower speakers (and continue to be in Brasil).

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Me and Toolio. Wasn't that a song?

 

Anyway, similar situation, same questions.

Is good sound quality achievable in a

larger room if listening position is close

in. My couch is on sliders.

 

Room is 25'x14'x8'. One of the long walls

is mostly glass. Could it be worse? No

treatments now or ever. Currently have

huge Salk HT3 floorstanders on the short

wall, 3 ft. out. Listening position adjustable,

usually 10 ft.

 

My wife would be ecstatic regardless of

sound quality. I would be misserable if

sound quality sucked. Any possibility my

wife, LS50s and a subwoofer, and myself

could find happiness?

 

pb-

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Me and Toolio. Wasn't that a song?

 

Anyway, similar situation, same questions.

Is good sound quality achievable in a

larger room if listening position is close

in. My couch is on sliders.

 

Room is 25'x14'x8'. One of the long walls

is mostly glass. Could it be worse? No

treatments now or ever. Currently have

huge Salk HT3 floorstanders on the short

wall, 3 ft. out. Listening position adjustable,

usually 10 ft.

 

My wife would be ecstatic regardless of

sound quality. I would be misserable if

sound quality sucked. Any possibility my

wife, LS50s and a subwoofer, and myself

could find happiness?

 

pb-

 

Absolutely. Besides, that's not what I would call a large room.

David

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Thanks for the reply. As I noted in my post, the furniture does not exist. This was the builder's original plan that I then scribbled on, and they like to stick furniture in plans. In reality, the room is just bare walls at the moment. I haven't purchased or positioned furniture, so I'm free to do as I please. I should have made it clearer that the arrows refer to two possible positions for speaker pairs, not positions for individual speakers. Given that information, and the fact that I can position speakers or couches anywhere, which wall would you recommend for the speakers?

I would recommend having the block wall behind the speakers instead of the 2x4 and drywall construction behind speakers.

David

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I'm mainly interested in knowing whether the room is likely to be too big for the speakers, even with a listening position fairly close to the speakers. That's my concern.

Yes the speakers will be just fine in the room at either location. Your listening position at either location is close enough to give the speakers a good chance of sounding good. I say a good chance of sounding good because you never can tell how any speaker will perform in a room. Only testing the speaker in the domain will tell you. But yes technically the speakers will work perfectly fine.

Thomas Turner

 

SPEAKERS - Snell Type C/V | PREAMP/DAC -  Project Pre Box S2 Digital  | SOURCE - Auralic Aries Mini | ROOM TREATMENT - LEDE, bass traps @ Rear of room, acoustic panels @ 1st reflections point: side walls | AMPLIFIER - Acurus A100

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Yes the speakers will be just fine in the room at either location. Your listening position at either location is close enough to give the speakers a good chance of sounding good. I say a good chance of sounding good because you never can tell how any speaker will perform in a room. Only testing the speaker in the domain will tell you. But yes technically the speakers will work perfectly fine.

 

Thanks for the input (both you and others above). I look forward to trying to find some to audition when I return to Canada in a month or so.

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OK so I just auditioned them...and I love 'em!

 

Great price, great sound, great convenience. For European in apartments, its almost PERFECT. For you yanks with tons of retail space in your home, this is an ideal 2nd system that is gentle enough on the pockets.

 

The new little active KEF should sell like hot cakes to the audiophile crowd living in condos in the big cities. It is the Phantom Killer. White, piano black and titanium are the colour choices. I demed the black.

 

They dont take up much space, play to 106 dB without subwoofer (only needed for bassheads and HT...not for normal listening...I checked with some deep plumbing organ music).

 

No DSD is NOT a deal-killing drawback as you can wifi or USB connect your laptop and with HQP/JRiver convert on the fly to PCM 24/192. The elegance and simplicity of the setup makes up for this minor shortfall.

 

Careful though, this may make you less audiophile and more musicophile given the turnkey nature of this beast! LoL

 

I am tempted to simplify my life but I am more excited on the Kii 3. However, given your feedback I am surely open now to the idea of test drive the little KEF's.

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I am tempted to simplify my life but I am more excited on the Kii 3. However, given your feedback I am surely open now to the idea of test drive the little KEF's.

 

Crutchfield has them, no hassle 60 day in home trial, free shipping and $10 return shipping. Not sure if they ship to Canada [emoji1063]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

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I am tempted to simplify my life but I am more excited on the Kii 3. However, given your feedback I am surely open now to the idea of test drive the little KEF's.

 

Not in the same price range. The Kii will do much lower bass, but costs 5X as much! Great feedback over at Audioshark.org forum too.

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Crutchfield has them, no hassle 60 day in home trial, free shipping and $10 return shipping. Not sure if they ship to Canada [emoji1063]

 

There is a Crutchfield Canada, so as far as I know Crutchfield US won't ship to Canada. The Canadian version doesn't seem to sell LS50s, or for that matter any KEF products. But thanks for the suggestion.

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Crutchfield has them, no hassle 60 day in home trial, free shipping and $10 return shipping. Not sure if they ship to Canada [emoji1063]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

Thanks. As much as I would love living in Canada (beautiful country), I live in Portugal. I will check here...

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  • 2 weeks later...
how can i use my wireless ls50 with a synology 416play nas.

You have 2 choices.

1. MiniMserver

2. Audio Station

 

You can use BubbleUPNP as the control point for MiniMServer. You can use the LS50 Wireless app and the Audio Station built-in app to control music.

 

The LS50 Wireless app is terrible as a control point. There is no Tidal support, nor gapless playback nor any other moderately advanced music playing control. ?

 

I use the MiniMServer and the Bubble UPNP app to control music my Synology DS213j.

Thomas Turner

 

SPEAKERS - Snell Type C/V | PREAMP/DAC -  Project Pre Box S2 Digital  | SOURCE - Auralic Aries Mini | ROOM TREATMENT - LEDE, bass traps @ Rear of room, acoustic panels @ 1st reflections point: side walls | AMPLIFIER - Acurus A100

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You have 2 choices.

The LS50 Wireless app is terrible as a control point. There is no Tidal support, nor gapless playback nor any other moderately advanced music playing control. ?

 

Roon integration would solve that problem, and allow easy NAS connectivity. I sincerely hope this is under consideration.

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I got them sorted on proper stands (VTI VSP24B) and have been going through some new stuff - Shins, Elbow, Laura Marling, Temples - can't believe how good these things sound.

 

After having the passive for years and running them with dual subs crossed over @80 Hz I was fully ready to do the same. I think I could live without a sub happily for 95% of my music.

 

After hearing what KEF's been able to do with some EQ/DSP my search for a sub has steered from SVS to Elac. Their Debut line features similar tech to get the bass smoothed out at the listening position. For just under $3K (retail) you could have a nearly full-range kick butt setup.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Mac Mini->Roon + Tidal->KEF LS50W

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I got them sorted on proper stands (VTI VSP24B) and have been going through some new stuff - Shins, Elbow, Laura Marling, Temples - can't believe how good these things sound.

 

After having the passive for years and running them with dual subs crossed over @80 Hz I was fully ready to do the same. I think I could live without a sub happily for 95% of my music.

 

After hearing what KEF's been able to do with some EQ/DSP my search for a sub has steered from SVS to Elac. Their Debut line features similar tech to get the bass smoothed out at the listening position. For just under $3K (retail) you could have a nearly full-range kick butt setup.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

Did you try the passive KEF LS50s with subs crossed at ~70Hz?

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subbed..

 

right now i'm more into head gear and portable audio (iems/chord mojo)...just starting to consider setting up a new living room rig..

 

active speakers also interest me...just the lack of wires, more boxes and having the company integrate quality products together...would prefer going this route over the sonos or blue sound route.

still investigating this field as aside from Devialet, I think dynaaudio also offers active speakers.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/12/2017 at 0:34 PM, Tait said:

Listened to these yesterday. I have the passive versions with naim amplification.

Bigger sound, more space between instruments, better decay of notes, deeper bass. Couldn't believe what I was hearing to be honest. I want!

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

 

Which Naim amp are you using?  Does the active version have the same subtlety and naturalness that the passive with Naim has?

David

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Nait XS.

And to answer your question, yes, and then some! Buttery smooth, fantastic imagery and very musical.

I've had these in my home for about a month now and I couldn't be happier with them!

Don't miss my old system at all.

Innuos Zenith MK2, Innuos Phoenix USB re-clocker, KEF LS50 active speakers

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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!

Den: Kef LS50 Wireless, Velodyne SPL1200, Lumin D1, Cayin SCD50T, Jolida D9, Technics 1200, Denon DL160, Wireworld Eclipse Silver 7 IC

Livingroom: T+A PA1530 r Integrated Amplifier, Innous Zen MKIII, L.K.S audio MH Da004, Tyler Acoustics Highland H2, High Fidelity Reveal IC, Wireworld Eclipse Silver 8 Speaker cable. 

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