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

[Ragera]

Thank you Mitcha for a great review! Since you have reviewed great speakers like Dutch&Dutch 8c, Kii3, Genelec 8351, LS50, I need your help for a 5.2 set up for movies and use the same for a 2.2 set up. My living room is 38 m2 and the listening area is 25 m2. My listening distance is 3,5 meters and the speakers will be 4 meters apart. Moreover my living room is very lively with large glass windows on the side. I have done some minimalistic room treatments with curtains but more I could not do due to WAF. 

 

Due to the room situation, I have to look for speakers with a great directivity index to prevent early reflections from the glass windows and use the room correction additionally. I had narrowed my LCRs earlier to Genelec 8351 (used with software GLM) or XTZ Divine Delta (use Anthem AVR or MiniDSP for room correction). With your review KEF LS50 seems to be back in the list and has the best WAF. Moreover I will be well within budget with LS50. I love JBL speakers especially M2, 708P but getting an identical center channel for my low board is difficult and the same goes for Kii/DD 8c. XTZ is a great price worth speaker with Accuton drivers providing great detail/clarity and very musical but they do not have a waveguide or horn like Genelec or JBL and I will have a difficulty in taming reflections with XTZ. Hence I am wondering to remove XTZ off the list. 

 

How do you compare Genelec 8351 to LS50 with respect to sound quality. What amps would you suggest for LS50? I did listen LS50 in two different stores. One was excellent whereas the other was mediocre. Probably it had to do with amps. I have also listened to JBL 4429 and love them (issue with center channel). 

 

Any recommendations/suggestion from you would be very helpful for me. 

 

Kind Regards, 

 Ram