KEF ls50 - Highly Recommended

Thanks for the input, David @ Franks!

I'll have a look on Napster. I cancelled my Spotify account after my first free month recently because I couldn't justify £10 per month just to get 320kbps. I'd have done it for a fiver - I don't need all the mobile rubbish though.

    So how do the LS 50 compare too say ATC's scm 11's ?   

Hi alchemist 1

I was waiting for for you

All the best

Rick @ Musicraft

alchemist 1 wrote:

So how do the LS 50 compare too say ATC's scm 11's ?   

I think the last line of one of my previous posts back sums that up

David,

Please post your thoughts on the bass performance when you've had a chance to evaluate.  I'm really curious about these speakers but the bass is a big question mark for me.   Thanks for sharing! 

Perhaps this link (bottom of page) answers your question: http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/kef-r300-vs-ls50

It is the opinion of a former scm11 owner.

But you already knew that answer because you asked the same question in that thread. Did you not like the answer?

                 Any way going to find out myself tomorrow demoing  LS50's and others, somewhere in coventry.

Obviously it is early days, but I had a flick through some music last night when I got home before watching a film. Bear in mind that I was just streaming from Napster, so we're talking 128kbps material here.

I tried out a bit of bass orientated stuff last night - Modeselektor, Portishead, Boards Of Canada, and a few other bits and bobs - usually stuff I try out on the R series. Modeselektor's Evil Twin (which I usually reserve for demonstrating the Blades) was missing the very lowest registers of bass, but I expected that anyway. Everything else about the track was stunning, from detail to dynamics. Despite the lack of extremely low bass that the track is known for, there was enough there for the track to not 'sound wrong'. Bass was very tight though.

Albums from the likes of Boards Of Canada, like Geogaddi, always throw up something new when you listen to them on a revealing pair of speakers, and when I say revealing, I'm not usually talking about a speaker at this sort of price point. It's just little bits you've never noticed before, whether its a bass note, a bit of distortion, a sample that now has a defined stop and start point complete with hiss or whatever. While the treble and midrange impress, the bass seems to impress more because of its ability to stop and start, and lay bare any texture within the note too.

It was pretty much the same with Portishead too. The lowest notes weren't present, but everything else was there, and a whole lot more too that you just don't get at this price point.

While it misses out on the lowest of the lows, there's no issue with tonal balance. The bass they have is strong, but never overbearing. I've seen references to speakers sounding like headphones with regards to detail and control. This is what you'll get from the LS50. And they're passive

One thing I will say (linked to something someone said earlier), is that for this money, these have no equal. With the R series, I remember pitching them against the SCM11 when they came in and they were of similar quality, but tonally quite different. Using the full bungs with the R300's made them sound very much like SCM11's, particularly in the bass. While the LS50's don't compete with the R300's in this area, they are better in pretty much every other way. As I've mentioned many times though, I wouldn't recommend full bungs as they tend to rob the life out of a speaker, making them sound flat and dull. The drivers of a speaker are usually optimised for use in either a ported or sealed cabinet - change that cabinet in any way and the speaker is no longer working optimally.

I'll post up a bit more when they're run in better, but after watching Payback last night with a DXD12012 on the end of them, I hate to think how good these are going to get!

   How are the LS50's for positioning ? [min. dist. from wall] 

Mine are placed about 8/9" from the wall - I don't really want to put them any closer as the right one will then be set back slightly compared to the sub sitting next to it - I like speakers to have a clear dispersion with nothing hindering them. Also, the front of them is pretty much where the front of my R300's came to. If I ever move the sub somewhere else I'll move them back an inch or two, but I doubt that'll be happening any time soon. The bass wasn't an issue even when they weren't bunged at all - I removed them when I was listening to music after I'd finished watching a film around 10pm.

Which other speakers will you be demoing?

Hi David,

8/9 inch frm the wall with the bung out, dont you get boomy sound?

Mine was placed like yours, but sounded boomy.

Then i put in the inner bung (half bung), then it sounded ok.

Initially I ran them with just the outer bung, but I took the bungs out later in the evening when I was playing them at a lower volume. I think if I was playing at my normal levels, I would need the outer bung