Dirac Live x KEF LS60 review

[heyholetsgo]

Gm everyone — first post here!
I’ve been a KEF LS60 owner for a bit over a year now. I really like these speakers, but I’ve always found them a little boomy in the midrange. My setup doesn’t help: the LS60s sit in my living room, which doubles as my listening space — hardwood floors, large windows, and not exactly the kind of place my wife would approve of acoustic panels .

Playing with the LS60’s built-in settings helped somewhat, but there was still something missing.

A few weeks ago, I decided to try the Bluesound Node (N130) with a Dirac Live license. Measuring the room was super easy, and after tweaking the target curve toward a proper Harman curve — wow. It’s like having completely new speakers. The boominess is almost gone, the overall presentation more relaxed yet sharper, like a curtain has been lifted. Voices are clearer and more natural — both for music and movies. Honestly, it took my LS60s from a 3.5/5 to a solid 5/5 in enjoyment.

I even added a KC62 sub to fill in the lowest end for movies, and the integration is seamless. I really wish KEF supported Dirac Live natively — I imagine a lot of LS60 owners are in the same situation.

A few drawbacks: the Node adds about 50 ms of delay, so lip-sync in movies isn’t perfect if you’re really watching for it (my wife doesn’t notice at all). Also, if you want to keep using your TV remote, the best setup is eARC from TV → Node → optical → LS60, letting the Node handle volume. I reprogrammed my LS60 remote to control the Node — works great once set up.

Overall, a bit pricey and takes some tinkering to dial in, but the payoff is absolutely worth it.
Curious — anyone else here using Dirac Live with the LS60 or a similar setup?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Curious — anyone else here using Dirac Live with the LS60 or a similar setup?

Not quite similar. I use my LS60s as SL/SR in a 5.3 system with DL-ART. In my case, the major improvement from DL-ART is correction for the acoustically asymmetric placement of the LS60s: One is on a long side-wall and the other one is at the junction of the opposite wall and an opening into another room. Very effective.

Synch/delay is unimportant to me as there is no video involved.

 

[heyholetsgo]

Not quite similar. I use my LS60s as SL/SR in a 5.3 system with DL-ART. In my case, the major improvement from DL-ART is correction for the acoustically asymmetric placement of the LS60s: One is on a long side-wall and the other one is at the junction of the opposite wall and an opening into another room. Very effective.

Synch/delay is unimportant to me as there is no video involved.

Very true, same here. I never realized that the center channel leans to the right (because of a wall) until Dirac Live accounted for it. Again, I think room correction is a must for hifi speakers in this price category

 

[kemmler3D]

Gm everyone — first post here!
I’ve been a KEF LS60 owner for a bit over a year now. I really like these speakers, but I’ve always found them a little boomy in the midrange. My setup doesn’t help: the LS60s sit in my living room, which doubles as my listening space — hardwood floors, large windows, and not exactly the kind of place my wife would approve of acoustic panels .

Playing with the LS60’s built-in settings helped somewhat, but there was still something missing.

A few weeks ago, I decided to try the Bluesound Node (N130) with a Dirac Live license. Measuring the room was super easy, and after tweaking the target curve toward a proper Harman curve — wow. It’s like having completely new speakers. The boominess is almost gone, the overall presentation more relaxed yet sharper, like a curtain has been lifted. Voices are clearer and more natural — both for music and movies. Honestly, it took my LS60s from a 3.5/5 to a solid 5/5 in enjoyment.

I even added a KC62 sub to fill in the lowest end for movies, and the integration is seamless. I really wish KEF supported Dirac Live natively — I imagine a lot of LS60 owners are in the same situation.

A few drawbacks: the Node adds about 50 ms of delay, so lip-sync in movies isn’t perfect if you’re really watching for it (my wife doesn’t notice at all). Also, if you want to keep using your TV remote, the best setup is eARC from TV → Node → optical → LS60, letting the Node handle volume. I reprogrammed my LS60 remote to control the Node — works great once set up.

Overall, a bit pricey and takes some tinkering to dial in, but the payoff is absolutely worth it.
Curious — anyone else here using Dirac Live with the LS60 or a similar setup?

Welcome! Can you show some before/ after measurements / graphs? I have LS60s so it's interesting to see what people are doing with them.

 

[sw55]

Node N130 with Dirac Live and the LS60s here too. Already had the Node and got the KEFs last month.
I use a Harmony universal remote and Apple TV remote so programmed both to control volume on the speakers.
I set the EQ on the speakers in “Expert mode” to default except for changing the bass extension to Extra so Dirac wouldn’t be trying to increase bass. I’ll try and post some Dirac screenshots when I have time.

 

[Fahzz]

Synch/delay is unimportant to me as there is no video involved.

Does this mean that synch/delay can be an issue when using Dirac Live ART with a home theater system?

 

[sw55]

A couple of screen shots from Dirac. I'm playing around with different target curves as listed on the left. Dirac initially suggested the bass be set to +10db!
In each case I set the bass curtain so there was no boost from Dirac below 50Hz.

 

[heyholetsgo]

Finally got around to measuring with HouseCurve — smoothed out all the bumps, and it’s a night-and-day difference in real life.

@Fahzz, unless you’re using a Dirac Live enabled preamp or receiver that can handle lip-sync compensation, you’ll get that delay — TVs can only delay audio, not move it forward.

@sw55 even with the KC62 Dirac suggested +8, so I’d try it out. Also, the Dirca default curve is very flat, I asked ChatGPT to a Harman falloff and I like that preset much better