A new Kef speaker? The Kef LS Luxe

[Kal Rubinson]

My idea comes from the fact that no port is resonance free not even kefs well designed ones . And ”something” is always leaking out from a port in the midrange ?

I get your point that there is always "Something" to worry about. OTOH, ports are effective only because of their resonance at low frequencies.

 

[thewas]

I have some of those impressive Philips MFB loudspeakers in my vintage loudspeaker collection, see https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/servo-speakers.18247/page-2#post-2270409 for some details and measurements, but truth to be said before Philips mass-marketed its accelerometer design several companies and inventors pioneered active servo and motional feedback mechanisms:

G.H. Brodie (1958) – Electrostatic/Capacitive Feedback: Granted a landmark patent in 1958 for an early motional feedback drive unit. The assembly used a contact on the cone facing a fixed chassis element to form a parallel plate capacitor. As cone excursion altered the capacitance, the changing signal was fed back to correct amplifier output.

Servo Speaker Co. (Late 1950s) — Cylindrical Capacitive Sensing: Commercialized Brodie’s concepts into a functional system. They embedded a cylindrical capacitor inside the voice coil space above the pole piece. This provided linear position tracking and lowered low-frequency total harmonic distortion (THD) by up to 50% at 20 Hz.

Matsushita / Panasonic (1964) — Bridge-Damped & Secondary Coil Systems: Introduced commercial systems like the Panasonic MF-800 power amplifier and speaker package in Japan and the US. Panasonic’s approach (developed alongside Luxman technology) utilized dual-voice-coil drive units and inductive bridge sensing to sample motion directly from the magnetic circuit.

Infinity Systems (1968) — The Servo-Statik 1: Founded by Arnie Nudell and John Ulrick, Infinity debuted the iconic Servo-Statik 1 hybrid system. It paired electrostatic panels with a dedicated 18-inch woofer driven by a custom servo-controlled amplifier. A secondary velocity/acceleration sensor attached to the woofer provided a feedback signal to linearize sub-bass output down to 15 Hz.

 

[Mnyb]

Another aspect of this , will there be any dedicated stands ?

The run of the mill fugly square stands with metal tubes won’t cut it imo

 

[heflys20]

I have some of those impressive Philips MFB loudspeakers in my vintage loudspeaker collection, see https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/servo-speakers.18247/page-2#post-2270409 for some details and measurements, but truth to be said before Philips mass-marketed its accelerometer design several companies and inventors pioneered active servo and motional feedback mechanisms:

Those Philips seem way ahead of their time...Shame what the " brand" has become.

 

[mhardy6647]

I get your point that there is always "Something" to worry about. OTOH, ports are effective only because of their resonance at low frequencies.

Thanks for pointing that out!
I was going to bring up the whole Helmholtz resonator thing and how bass reflex loading works, but I probably would have been much snarkier in so doing than were you in your concise and polite reply!

 

[LiveTek]

Where are the third party measurements on these things? Figured they'd be out by now.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Sound test comparison of LS60 and Luxe
Video is in German
Luxe sounded better to me, even if they had less bass

 

[Jazigo]

View attachment 553966
Sound test comparison of LS60 and Luxe
Video is in German
Luxe sounded better to me, even if they had less bass

Holy melony! If they are somewhat level matched, the Luxe beats the LS60 by a good margin on Song 1. Sadly, I think the Luxe where played louder than the LS60.

 

[Mnyb]

I don’t think you can draw any conclusions from listening via YouTube videos. It’s just not information

What you are recording in a room is not what 2 ears and a brain would hear in the same room , not even with headphones.

But ls luxe seems to be the speaker LS50 wireless should have been

I’m surprised that 6,5” is considered big especially in a coax where the center is not driver area and ls50 has even smaller drivers ?

The normal 1” tweeter and 6,5” midbass format is barely usable as it is imo ?

 

[Penelinfi]

Another aspect of this , will there be any dedicated stands ?

The run of the mill fugly square stands with metal tubes won’t cut it imo

They seem to have this as an option

But I think you could find some bar stools that look nicer and probably cost less.

Eg . (Cut and paste with AI) at least, I find it more interesting

 

[Tovarich007]

I don’t think you can draw any conclusions from listening via YouTube videos. It’s just not information

What you are recording in a room is not what 2 ears and a brain would hear in the same room , not even with headphones.

I fully agree.
Videos comparing sound on YT are totally useless. i never watch them and moreover listen to them, except for a one minute or two, just for fun.
Compressed data, poor microphones and preamps used in general, on levels poorly matched.
How can we seriously draw any conclusion, or even correlative impressions, from this ?

As for the 16 cm diamater of the Luxe, of course this speaker ain't meant to explore the infra bass, for sure, but this driver is seriously engeneered and the feedback amplifier used can increase, to some extent, the repsonse beyond what a 16 cm in his voume could normally do.
But there are limits of course. It's not really a full range speaker.
I would like that KEF will release in the future a speaker a bit larger than the Luxe, with a 16 cm (or a 13 cm) for medium/high and two opposite side firing 16 or 20 cm for the bass, a bit like the Palmer orbit 11, but with more sophisticated drivers ans styling, and the "KEF sound" that i appreciate quite much.

 

[Jazigo]

But I think you could find some bar stools that look nicer and probably cost less.

AI generated, but the product is real.

 

[mhardy6647]

They seem to have this as an option
View attachment 554188

But I think you could find some bar stools that look nicer and probably cost less.

Eg . (Cut and paste with AI) at least, I find it more interesting
View attachment 554189

KEF could take a page from a British progressive rock band of yore and dangle them.

 

[Descartes]

I reserve my judgment until I hear them!
KEF please bring some more colors like blue and red

 

[Goldhamster916]

Does someone know what amplifier module the Luxe has and how reliable that one is?
I am wondering about the longevity of the electronics inside the luxe, especially about those that are fundamental, even if you connect it to an AVR.

 

[Flaesh]

and red

I wrote it, then resisted, and then couldn't resist. I suggest pink-red with an orange ring.

 

[Descartes]

I wrote it, then resisted, and then couldn't resist. I suggest pink-red with an orange ring.

Ha ha

 

[napfkuchen]

Ikea OLIVBLAD (59,98 EUR per pair)
Birds can then use the bass reflex port as an entrance to the nesting box.

 

[ephemere]

This is a long thread, but does anyone actually own these? Looks like @Jukebox does? And @Redogfizbal returned his pair. Anyone else?

I ordered a pair in Dusk Titanium. We just moved into a house that we'll furnish from scratch. There's no good place to put big floor-standers or even speakers on stands, but there's a modest library with a good shelf for small speakers with about a foot of space behind them. I'm testing with the KEF LSX II LT right now.

I planned to get the Mesavonic CDM65 for this space. But when the LS Luxe came out, the aesthetics were so far beyond the CDM65 (and pretty much everything else) that I changed my plans. I know the CDM65 is excellent -- lots of data to support that -- but there's scant evidence about the LS Luxe yet. Most youtube videos seem to be more marketing than review. Not too many reports from people who have actually done extensive listening.

My take on the negative comments in this thread:

• Room correction or parametric eq would have been nice, but you can just feed it with a Wiim Mini or whatever. I've experimented with room correction for 24 years, and I've had mixed results so it's hard for me to lose sleep over it. I'll try KEF's basic compensation modes first and go from there.
• I think the industrial design is great. The shape is interesting, like a spline surface (reminds me of my days at Pixar). The Dusk Titanium color will integrate into our warm color palette much better than the ubiquitous neutral grayscale or cold silver. I usually don't favor gloss finishes, but in this color and on the curved surface it looks great.

 

[Mnyb]

This is a long thread, but does anyone actually own these? Looks like @Jukebox does? And @Redogfizbal returned his pair. Anyone else?

I ordered a pair in Dusk Titanium. We just moved into a house that we'll furnish from scratch. There's no good place to put big floor-standers or even speakers on stands, but there's a modest library with a good shelf for small speakers with about a foot of space behind them. I'm testing with the KEF LSX II LT right now.

I planned to get the Mesavonic CDM65 for this space. But when the LS Luxe came out, the aesthetics were so far beyond the CDM65 (and pretty much everything else) that I changed my plans. I know the CDM65 is excellent -- lots of data to support that -- but there's scant evidence about the LS Luxe yet. Most youtube videos seem to be more marketing than review. Not too many reports from people who have actually done extensive listening.

My take on the negative comments in this thread:

• Room correction or parametric eq would have been nice, but you can just feed it with a Wiim Mini or whatever. I've experimented with room correction for 24 years, and I've had mixed results so it's hard for me to lose sleep over it. I'll try KEF's basic compensation modes first and go from there.
• I think the industrial design is great. The shape is interesting, like a spline surface (reminds me of my days at Pixar). The Dusk Titanium color will integrate into our warm color palette much better than the ubiquitous neutral grayscale or cold silver. I usually don't favor gloss finishes, but in this color and on the curved surface it looks great.

I do room correction with a WiiM or ROON to my LS60 + subs . WiiM + KEF is not a bad combo.
Conservative aproach only in the bass below 200Hz , it’s useful if the speakers has actual bass and almost needed for sub integration imo.