Article: KEF LS50 (David) Versus JBL 4722 Cinema (Goliath) Speaker Comparison with Binaural Recordings

[hionhifi]

@mitchco, great evaluation. I always enjoy reading your articles. 

 

Do you have any idea if these results can be obtained using the active version of the KEF LS50, the LS50W’s? I’m thinking maybe not since the LS50W’s are active and there’s no way to get the audiolense corrected subwoofer signal into the LS50W signal path. I’m unsure given the LS50W’s only have a subwoofer out. 😐 

 

If I can’t build it with the LS50W’s I might just look at replacing them with a pair of non-active versions and build it that way. Your results are amazing and previously I thought I could only get these results with something much more expensive like the Dutch & Dutch, Kii’s, or Genelecs. The fact I can get measured, repeatedly good in-room audio performance for under $3000 is amazing 😉 . Kudos to you for putting this evaluation together. 

[hionhifi]

3 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

I use KEF LS50 Wireless speakers with a KEF R400b sub woofer and it sounds great. I cross the sub over at 70 Hz and cut the LS50s at 70 Hz with the KEF Control app. At the moment there is no way of configuring the impulse response to time align the subs with the main speakers, and there is only a phase switch on the R400b to switch to out of phase. I could physically move the sub backwards and forwards though instead, and I think I'm going to get a UMIK-1 microphone and REW to tune the sub woofer via measurements.

I see. Mitchco is using Audiolense to supply the linear phase digital XO at 70 Hz and time alignment to the LS50’s. He’s also using , Audiolense to apply DRC, both in the frequency and time domains. The combo of subs and DRC fill in the low end frequency response and gets rid most of the nulls at 70 and 80 Hz. It doesn’t appear that the LS50W built-in controls offer enough horsepower or granularity (ie, phase control, bass extension, sub out low pass frequency, sub gain, sub polarity, wall distance) to achieve the same results Mitchco is getting using Audiolense.

 

I suppose the only real way to know if the KEF’s/Rythmik sub can be integrated to achieve the same in-room response is to measure them in a similar way done in the article.