KEF LS60 Wireless Just Announced

[Puddingbuks]

The thing with bass is that everyone has a different measure of wat is “a lot of bass” or “deep bass”.

 

[raest]

question for people saying a version with bigger drivers would cannibalize Blade sales: really? why? it never happens in the real world. as already explained by a fellow who worked in sales much earlier in the thread (or was it the Ref1M review thread?), nobody with the money to go out and buy a Blade (2) is even considering something in the <10k bracket as worthwhile of his/her time. the world does not work like that. if it did, KEF would've already discontinued the Reference line as nobody would've bought it considering the R line exists

a made in china passive but bigger LS60 makes total sense. it wouldn't cannibalize a single Blade sale, not even on the secondary for the non-meta series

anyway, i think it would make total sense for the to discontinue the R line altogether, to be replaced by a full LS lineup. this way they have the entry level blocky design Q line made in china covering the sub 1k segments, then the entry level luxury/lifestyle curvy LS line made in china covering the 1-10k segments, then the luxury handmade in britain blocky Ref line and the lifestyle luxury curvy Blade line covering the >10k segments. it streamlines the lineup and makes it easier for the customers to understand at a glance

 

[Ron Texas]

The thing with bass is that everyone has a different measure of wat is “a lot of bass” or “deep bass”.

Same for loudness.

 

[Sancus]

The thing with bass is that everyone has a different measure of wat is “a lot of bass” or “deep bass”.

Right, which is why Kef provides us a perfectly good compression graph so there's really not much confusion possible on this topic. It is very easy to tell how much bass these have if you've measured your current system, or any system you think has enough bass.

 

[Skyro]

anyway, i think it would make total sense for the to discontinue the R line altogether, to be replaced by a full LS lineup. this way they have the entry level blocky design Q line made in china covering the sub 1k segments, then the entry level luxury/lifestyle curvy LS line made in china covering the 1-10k segments, then the luxury handmade in britain blocky Ref line and the lifestyle luxury curvy Blade line covering the >10k segments. it streamlines the lineup and makes it easier for the customers to understand at a glance

There are plenty of customers who appreciate the R line, myself included where we want traditional passive speaker set that isn't budget nor TOTL. And personally I'm not a fan of the looks of the LS60. I like the LS50 but the shape just looks very odd carried over into a tower format.

Also everybody on here automatically equates wider dispersion = better which is not always the case and certainly a matter of taste as there are trade offs here, especially in a surround speaker setup. I really think that is where the R series shines, in a mixed-use music/HT living room setup. Even though they are boxy they still have a "lifestyle" look to them with the sleek design of the front baffle and woofers.

 

[AlexanderM]

The thing with bass is that everyone has a different measure of wat is “a lot of bass” or “deep bass”.

My ears can only take so much bass before it becomes painful and I have to turn it down. It can hurt my eardrums.

 

[raest]

There are plenty of customers who appreciate the R line, myself included where we want traditional passive speaker set that isn't budget nor TOTL. And personally I'm not a fan of the looks of the LS60. I like the LS50 but the shape just looks very odd carried over into a tower format.

i don't disagree (i own a pair of R7s myself), but most customers don't as afaik the LS50 outsells the R3 by a considerable margin, and i expect the LS60 to do the same to the R11. it totally makes sense for them to replace the segments occupied by the R line with the LS line, as it's comparatively more commercially successful.

if they release a passive model with performance comparable to the LS60 in a comparable price bracket, i'm definitely saving up for them (while i fully acknowledge the superiority of well designed active speakers in principle, i'd consider the LS60 if i had more faith in KEF's reliability regarding electronics. too many bad stories about the KCs and LSs floating around. 2 years warranty is nowhere even close to enough in a product like this at that price point)

 

[Vacceo]

There is not a single gram of irony in the following question, so I will say it as it is: how do you define a lifestyle product in audio?

If the LS50 is clearly a product that, limitations aside, delivers an excellent sound, why is it more "lifestyle" than an R3? Sure, it is less limited and also performs quite well.

 

[maverickronin]

There is not a single gram of irony in the following question, so I will say it as it is: how do you define a lifestyle product in audio?

An AIO device with heavy focus on convenience oriented inputs which will soon become obsolete?

 

[Emlin]

There is not a single gram of irony in the following question, so I will say it as it is: how do you define a lifestyle product in audio?

If the LS50 is clearly a product that, limitations aside, delivers an excellent sound, why is it more "lifestyle" than an R3? Sure, it is less limited and also performs quite well.

Lifestyle equals unobtrusive with an app.

 

[Axo1989]

... if they release a passive model with performance comparable to the LS60 in a comparable price bracket, i'm definitely saving up for them (while i fully acknowledge the superiority of well designed active speakers in principle, i'd consider the LS60 if i had more faith in KEF's reliability regarding electronics. too many bad stories about the KCs and LSs floating around. 2 years warranty is nowhere even close to enough in a product like this at that price point)

The LS60 performance is so much a function of the active design that a "passive model" would be a very different speaker. Significantly larger cabinet volume, to start with.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Are you referring to the shadow flare (as it is called by KEF)? I don't think it really should be called a horn and it won't provide much loading of the driver(s).

It's main purpose is to acoustically mask the cabinet edges and thus reduce diffraction. It's a very good example of clever tech that would have probably never made it into any production speaker in a world that didn't have FEM. Just looking at it, many viewers would plain call its influence negligible because of its shallow profile and relatively small size (compared to a true waveguide). Ironically, it was the cheaper build quality and thus higher tolerances with 2018 R series that did proof the point: It has been found out (by Erin and others, if I remember correctly) that some R series speakers showed unexpected dips/peaks in their frequency response. It turned out that by carefully pressing on the edges the shadow flare could be realigned and the irregularities went away.

Edit:
Looks like I'm always late by one minute. From now on I will sit back and let @thewas do the work.

Yes I also asume that thing, is what everyone knows but for a reason i remember some people talking about the shadow flare as a mini horn for the mids and highs
But neither in the white paper or the blog from kef i found that, i think the unique function is just reduce the difraction

The Shadow Flare - Increasing Clarity By Reducing Diffraction

With the release of the all-new R Series, KEF engineers have reduced cabinet diffraction increasing output clarity and purity.

us.kef.com

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There are plenty of customers who appreciate the R line, myself included where we want traditional passive speaker set that isn't budget nor TOTL. And personally I'm not a fan of the looks of the LS60. I like the LS50 but the shape just looks very odd carried over into a tower format.

Also everybody on here automatically equates wider dispersion = better which is not always the case and certainly a matter of taste as there are trade offs here, especially in a surround speaker setup. I really think that is where the R series shines, in a mixed-use music/HT living room setup. Even though they are boxy they still have a "lifestyle" look to them with the sleek design of the front baffle and woofers.

Also there is plently of customers who hates actives design.. XD

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

You cannot compare the R3 with the LS60 from woofer capabilities, also the most audible advantage of subwoofers is often the different placement and corresponding filling of SBIR dips.


The shadow flare is more to reduce the edge diffraction from the hard baffle edges of the R and Ref models, that's why the LS50 and Blades don't have it, the LS60 baffle has rounded edges and the edges are very close to the driver which reduces the diffraction problems, it is all described in the white paper.

But the blades have a kind of '' shadow flare '', is not like the blades have just the UNIQ into the MDF, blades have that huge black thing in their UNIQ

 

[Skyro]

i don't disagree (i own a pair of R7s myself), but most customers don't as afaik the LS50 outsells the R3 by a considerable margin, and i expect the LS60 to do the same to the R11. it totally makes sense for them to replace the segments occupied by the R line with the LS line, as it's comparatively more commercially successful.

if they release a passive model with performance comparable to the LS60 in a comparable price bracket, i'm definitely saving up for them (while i fully acknowledge the superiority of well designed active speakers in principle, i'd consider the LS60 if i had more faith in KEF's reliability regarding electronics. too many bad stories about the KCs and LSs floating around. 2 years warranty is nowhere even close to enough in a product like this at that price point)

That's assuming the 2 models are fishing from the same pool. LS50 is clearly targeted toward nearfield/desktop music setups for example. I have the R3 + dual subs in a surround mixed use setup in my living room and if the R series did not exist I would not have purchased the LS50s and likely would have gone with another manufacturer.

 

[Vacceo]

Lifestyle equals unobtrusive with an app.

Then, most modern AVR's are...

Not that I am questioning your logic, but the opposite to lifestyle would be... Purely direct interface devices?

 

[pablolie]

... nobody with the money to go out and buy a Blade (2) is even considering something in the <10k bracket as worthwhile of his/her time...

totally not true. there are several of us out there that did sink a lot of $ into audio and learned the law of diminishing results.

I CAN buy pretty much anything I want but feel foolish in doing so unless there are truly meaningful benefits I enjoy. the days when I felt compelled to impress people are long gone, I am very secure with my choices and don't need to impress anybody... I have about $35k of unused audio equipment I have kept but don't use anymore. Admittedly I also have grown tired of allocating so much space and attention to audio equipment, its sprawl and the wasted time in matching and optimal setup. the alternatives to that started appearing with ever better active loudspeakers and now stuff like the LS60.

I enjoy elegant simplicity and what you could call the ephemeral nature of audio these days... the less of it I see, the easier the ownership is... the much better. I want to listen to great music. not wrestle with boxes and changes and setup. I still want pride of ownership, don't get me wrong. but it's changed for me... and the market is changing fast and I don't think traditionalist audiophiles "get it"...

I already simplified my environment with zero concessions to sound quality to me, and I feel something like the LS60 totally is on my roadmap...

 

[bo_knows]

My ears can only take so much base before it becomes painful and I have to turn it down. It can hurt my eardrums.

Not to mention a headache that sets in as well.

 

[pablolie]

Not to mention a headache that sets in as well.

Not to mention that sub 60Hz Is pretty irrelevant to music. Unless you obsess about mixes with artificial bass overload or you have a high quality recording of a concert that recorded one. of about 2 dozen organs in the world that generate those bass levels (and which imo musically make zero difference).

Honestly the bass extensión discussions are lost on me. get a cheap sub and turn it up all the way. oh yeah. FX stuff. but crap for music.

when you listen to real music (including Stanley Clarke's bass, which I am a fan of) boosting the below 80 bass is a distortion and a caricature of the truth of the sound...

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

The LS60 performance is so much a function of the active design that a "passive model" would be a very different speaker. Significantly larger cabinet volume, to start with.

But I see this in the white paper

'' The attenuaton in cabinet vibraton is an astounding -20 dB broadband. This is equivalent to increasing cabinet mass in a non-force-cancelling system by a factor of 10. ''

 

[pablolie]

just a reminder that anyone that thinks a white paper is a scientific truth... don't.

white papers are (ideally) good guides about design goals and the key differentiators that were targeted.

they invariably get mixed with less definsible marketing magic dust.

they are NOT peer reviewed and approved scientific papers.

please stop using white papers as unquestionable sources of truth. they are technical marketing documents with bias. informative...but biased 100% because that is the goal of every white paper in existence.