A new Kef speaker? The Kef LS Luxe

[Descartes]

Among other things, these may well turn out to be one of the greatest center channel speakers ever.

Can you make a surround sound system with five, seven or nine of these?

 

[Descartes]

The answer to that one is to get on KEF to sell a single one with the mods to be a center. They will listen if the people in this forum think it's a great idea.

Got your ears on Jack?

I doubt that they will but you never know

 

[staticV3]

Can you make a surround sound system with five, seven or nine of these?

The Luxe is an active loudspeaker with analog input, so yes you can use it for most every purpose including surround sound.

But you'll need to use an external AVP.
AFAIK, the Luxe doesn't have surround sound capability built-in.

 

[Chanur]

Supports streaming via Ethernet and Qobuz and Tidal connect applications. So you could plug them in and control content with a phone or tablet. A clean and simple setup in a room where you don’t want all the cables and boxes we have in a standard audio system. Also has room correction capability, supports a sub,…. A pretty compelling set of features. Link below should show you the info I’ve quoted. Edit: It’s a file I found on the KEF website.

Fact sheet.

No Spotify connect seems like a big miss. It's the most popular music streaming platform by a massive margin.

 

[Chanur]

So I wrote a two pages in depth analysis of the Luxe on the KEF Reddit forum page (a major social media platform) to add some perspective since basically all of the posts wheren’t any deeper than some flavor of ,,ugh look at this new ugly expensive egg from KEF“. My post was removed by the moderators without any reason. It took me two hours to write. Probably wasn’t superficial enough for that eco system. Never again.

Reddit is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

 

[geox]

The Luxe is an active loudspeaker with analog input, so yes you can use it for most every purpose including surround sound.

But you'll need to use an external AVP.
AFAIK, the Luxe doesn't have surround sound capability built-in.

Can you make a surround sound system with five, seven or nine of these?

Its odd that outside of Sony , no one else seems to be focussed on living room theatre market with large 98 / 115 screen.

5.2 setup with these kefs would be killer

 

[Rischa]

What’s a little off-putting about the aesthetics to me is that they’re shaped like a human head, but with a big hole where the face should be. They bring to mind those weird humanoid robots that seem to be so ubiquitous on the internet lately. From a visual design standpoint, spherical cabinets would be a better fit with the concentric driver.

That said, sonic neutrality trumps visual design for me. I can appreciate the purity of purpose in their looks if the payoff is in their performance. Robots are kinda cool as long as they’re playing music and not taking my job, lol.

 

[jhaider]

We have some such disloyal members. I can't believe someone would rip this off and run to the FB to post it as his idea in a matter of one evening... Crazy.

Although, I'm glad he liked it that much. And a lot of commentators are saying the same, soooo... A word to KEF. There appears to be some interest for these among your buyers.
View attachment 548321

My pic was bad, but this one has that "AI stupidity" with placing the back of the speaker on the front.

Add grilles to that and I could see it replacing the KH 120 II on my desk.

 

[Klonatans]

It's not a a value proposition, it's a lifestyle product that may or may not perform objectively well (we'll find out when Amir or Erin gets a pair for review).

 

[SmallestRoom]

What’s a little off-putting about the aesthetics to me is that they’re shaped like a human head, but with a big hole where the face should be. They bring to mind those weird humanoid robots that seem to be so ubiquitous on the internet lately. From a visual design standpoint, spherical cabinets would be a better fit with the concentric driver.

That said, sonic neutrality trumps visual design for me. I can appreciate the purity of purpose in their looks if the payoff is in their performance. Robots are kinda cool as long as they’re playing music and not taking my job, lol.

 

[thewas]

Is a nonsense to talk about tonal differences or similarities in a YouTube recording with room response, microphone and (possibly) sound edition.

I listened stuff like that of Neumann KH 120 II: It sounded way different that the sample but is crazy linear.

Apart that the author of the video can edit the recording and making sound as similar as he can to the sample, but even supposing no edition, is not trustable.

While I fully agree about such recordings it should be said that even a good loudspeaker like the KH120 II is only linear on-axis and the recording and what we perceive are different mixes of direct and indirect sound unless the space is anechoic.

I would look more at the fact that this is an in-room recording, it's amazing that it sounds as close to the source as it does from that POV. There is some muffling of the sound compared to the source, but "bite" is something that should not be expected to be preserved in this situation. The best we can do is listen for major tonal variations or distortion in this format. As far as that goes I hear nothing obvious.

Funnily I mainly noticed when listening to the video rather a small amount of boosted mids and his measurements after that also show such, I don't want to claim though that this might not be a coincidence.

Interestingly also my Q7 Meta also tend to be a tiny bit boosted between 1-3 kHz at my listening position, maybe its also a part of their current sound tuning?

 

[Chanur]

In this market you have the new Klipsch second series of powered speakers. The Nines are like half the price and more attractive (though I like the looks of the KEF). Seems like it competition might be tough.

 

[thegeton]

Reddit is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Mercy! No truth was ever told so pointedly. Amen my bother...

 

[Jukebox]

No Spotify connect seems like a big miss. It's the most popular music streaming platform by a massive margin.

It does support Spotify Connect lossless; It was the first thing I have played on them after unboxing; works like a charm

 

[Chanur]

It does support Spotify Connect lossless; It was the first thing I have played on them after unboxing; works like a charm

Oh great. It wasn't mentioned in that post so I assumed it didn't. That's a relief.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

It's not a a value proposition, it's a lifestyle product that may or may not perform objectively well (we'll find out when Amir or Erin gets a pair for review).

Idk, given that the LS 50 II's are going for $2500, these are not unreasonably priced. To me it looks like it will have the performance of the Reference 1 Meta at half its price. It's unthinkable these guys will sound bad. It would be a major upset, the High End Audio equivalent of the Ford Edsel for these things to be anything other than the speaker that fixes the every shortcoming of the LS 50 design and delivers a nearly full range, nearly full volume, speaker in a compact Uni-Q design. With all of Kef's savvy in producing speakers that are BOTH lifestyle speakers and genuine high flying high end speakers. it looks like they've now produced something which can now be characterized as an end game lifestyle speaker and done it for a price that most committed audiophiles will find a way to afford. I think these are going to be a category killer. And like every Kef product, they will go on sale. Twice a year.

 

[Miguelón]

even a good loudspeaker like the KH120 II is only linear on-axis

The in room response of the KH 120 II is nearly perfect.

Or at least as good as any 2 way non-coaxial speaker can be.

 

[Miguelón]

Idk, given that the LS 50 II's are going for $2500, these are not unreasonably priced. To me it looks like it will have the performance of the Reference 1 Meta at half its price. It's unthinkable these guys will sound bad. It would be a major upset, the High End Audio equivalent of the Ford Edsel for these things to be anything other than the speaker that fixes the every shortcoming of the LS 50 design and delivers a nearly full range, nearly full volume, speaker in a compact Uni-Q design. With all of Kef's savvy in producing speakers that are BOTH lifestyle speakers and genuine high flying high end speakers. it looks like they've now produced something which can now be characterized as an end game lifestyle speaker and done it for a price that most committed audiophiles will find a way to afford. I think these are going to be a category killer. And like every Kef product, they will go on sale. Twice a year.

In fact they are the only active 2 way bookshelf-type 6.5 inch speaker of the brand, IFRC.

They are quite logical on the KEF lineup.

Many people, including myself, may consider buy them because they prefer small setups without subwoofer and a good vertical directivity.

 

[thewas]

The in room response of the KH 120 II is nearly perfect.

Or at least as good as any 2 way non-coaxial speaker can be.

Second, as said like with most conventional loudspeakers its tilted (so not flat) and also has a dip around crossover region.



The good thing is that human perception is different though and we perceive more the tonality of the direct sound in that region.

 

[Miguelón]

Second, as said like with most conventional loudspeakers its tilted (so not flat) and also has a dip around crossover region.

View attachment 548560

The good thing is that human perception is different though and we perceive more the tonality of the direct sound in that region.

The dip is due to non coaxial (vertical) disposition of woofer and tweeter.

That's why I said "as any non coaxial speaker can be".

Linear directivity means that total reflections decrease in a linear function, that's why this tilted stright line is considered (close to) perfectly linear.

No speaker have horizontal in room response, It would be quite unpleasant, you can target a flat curve in room response in a room correction software and verify.

Is only useful to near field critical listening, mainly edition.