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

[folzag]

Thank you, Mitch.

 

The recordings were awesome and really took this review to the next level.

 

To my mind, if money and space were no object, the JBL's are hand's down the winner. Their sound felt more natural and balanced. The song coming out of them had less of a reproduction feel, like the singers were present in the room. In contrast, the KEF's I coldn't shake the feeling that the song sounded like a playback of recording made in a studio. A very good recording, but a studio all the same. It didn't make me feel "presence" for lack of a better word that the JBL did. A little too "clinical" may be.

 

Next, the KEF's with and without sub's were interesting to me because the difference is very similar to what I experience listening to my pair of Emotiva Airmotive 6s" powered monitors with and without sub's. Without sub's, it sounds nice and perfectly clear, but there's something missing... it doesn't get my body responding to the music. As soon as the sub's turn on, though, it's like the bottom half of the music comes alive and now I can feel it. At the same time, if I stop and consider it, it also feels a little made-up. Too much energy underneath. That is also something I struggle with on my sub's -- keeping the bottom from getting too strong where it starts to be fake. And again, I don't get that "fake" feeling from the JBL's.

 

I reckon the million dollar question is whether it's from the room and the speaker placement that could be easily solved, or something else, like directivity, that can't be captured without big boxes like the JBL's. In any case, I am looking forward to more reviews and more binaural recordings.

 

Many thanks and much appreciation,

Allan F.

[folzag]

10 hours ago, mitchco said:

 

Allan @folzag, thanks for taking the time to listen to the binaural recordings and your response.  It would seem our listening preferences are similar 🙂 I am still amazed at how much directivity difference there is between these two speakers, which is on the binaural recordings.

 

I feel confident that the differences are predominately directivity related. My room has enough treatment to make the decay time (RT60) not only smooth across frequency range, but within industry guidelines for my size room. It does measure towards the livelier side of the spec...

 

Thanks again,

Mitch

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to say...  on the other hand, for the vast majority of us where size and cost does matter, the KEF's are d*mn impressive. If one did not have a pair of big boxes to directly compare against, I find it hard to believe anyone would be dissatisfied with them paired with a properly tuned/weighted sub.

 

There is incredible price-to-performance available to us today. It's good to remind ourselves of that from time to time, and keep a proper perspective, which you have. So thanks for that too.