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

 

[Mr. Reeee]

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?

I got LS60s soon after they were released. Great speakers! Actually, pretty amazing!
My listening space seems similar. Hardwood floors, no curtains on windows, minimalist furniture.

I added IsoAcoustic GAIA II isolation feet which improved detail.
Tried my KEF KUBE 10b for a few months to see if a sub would add anything. It did.
Decided on a KC62 sub and returned the 10b to my LSX bedroom system.
About a year later, added a second KC62 to the LS60 system for a major boost in mid-range detail, sound stage, bass detail and overall impact.

Read about Dirac, which looks interesting, if a bit expensive, but saw that it only supports a very limited range of speakers.
How did you get it to work with LS60s?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Read about Dirac, which looks interesting, if a bit expensive, but saw that it only supports a very limited range of speakers.

That's not true. The only system restriction is whether your electronics will support it.

 

[Oddball]

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.

That is very interesting as ART is not doing any 3D correction for the unfortunate speaker placement. Very effective is not really taking it to the base. For me, in somewhat similar circumstances, not really very effective, but then would also not expect that as it was not billed as such.

Probably the only reason I would ever want to go to Trinnov world is exactly to pass the "very effective" bar and hopefully experience something better.

We all appreciate your work and contributions - but sometimes they need a bit more that a line or two.

 

[kyuu]

Looks great. Only thing I'd do different is try curtaining off everything above 400Hz.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

That is very interesting as ART is not doing any 3D correction for the unfortunate speaker placement. Very effective is not really taking it to the base. For me, in somewhat similar circumstances, not really very effective, but then would also not expect that as it was not billed as such.

It is not doing any 3D correction since none is needed. Speaker placement is physically symmetrical but, due to a shorter wall on one side, it is acoustically asymmetric. ART employs vastly different spectral and level adjustments to correct for that! Trinnov not needed.

 

[Mr. Reeee]

That's not true. The only system restriction is whether your electronics will support it.

My KEF LS60s or LSX aren’t.

When I scanned the manufacturer list on the Dirac website, the list looked pretty limited to me.

The fact that Dirac can’t be used universally, regardless of equipment, seems pretty limiting, which is unfortunate given it’s reputation.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

My KEF LS60s or LSX aren’t.

When I scanned the manufacturer list on the Dirac website, the list looked pretty limited to me.

The fact that Dirac can’t be used universally, regardless of equipment, seems pretty limiting, which is unfortunate given it’s reputation.

Those KEFs are, basically, closed systems and implementation of software in them is at KEF's (umm) discretion.
OTOH, I run Dirac on my PC and, in fact, EQ my LS60s.

 

[Oddball]

It is not doing any 3D correction since none is needed. Speaker placement is physically symmetrical but, due to a shorter wall on one side, it is acoustically asymmetric. ART employs vastly different spectral and level adjustments to correct for that! Trinnov not needed.

Perhaps my experience is different as level of acoustic asymmetry is much greater in my system. Speakers are placed by the book, but room is entirely open on right side and closed on the left side.

ART provided all kinds of improvement for the system, but did not do much to fix the acoustic asymmetry problem. From what Trinnov dealers are pitching, they believe they could partially fix the problem. I am obviously cautious as they are conflicted in providing advice, but then the mic they use is something that should theoretically work better than our gold standard UMIC1.

 

[kyuu]

The fact that Dirac can’t be used universally, regardless of equipment, seems pretty limiting, which is unfortunate given it’s reputation.

Perhaps I'm not understanding but I'm not sure how you expect it to be universal. You have to have something capable of loading the Dirac filters. You can do it with a PC if you don't have anything else, which about as universal as it gets.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Perhaps my experience is different as level of acoustic asymmetry is much greater in my system. Speakers are placed by the book, but room is entirely open on right side and closed on the left side.

Mine is not so asymmetric. Both left and right walls extend from the front wall back but, on the left, the wall ends just beyond the RL speaker while, on the right, the wall continues another 6 feet.

ART provided all kinds of improvement for the system, but did not do much to fix the acoustic asymmetry problem. From what Trinnov dealers are pitching, they believe they could partially fix the problem. I am obviously cautious as they are conflicted in providing advice, but then the mic they use is something that should theoretically work better than our gold standard UMIC1.

Understood. Trinnov AltitudeCI coming soon.

 

[Mr. Reeee]

Those KEFs are, basically, closed systems and implementation of software in them is at KEF's (umm) discretion.
OTOH, I run Dirac on my PC and, in fact, EQ my LS60s.

How do you do that?
There’s no way to really interface with the LS60s except through the KEF Connect iPhone/iPad app, is there?
Or is there a way to connect using the USB port?
I’m a Mac user.

 

[dlaloum]

Perhaps my experience is different as level of acoustic asymmetry is much greater in my system. Speakers are placed by the book, but room is entirely open on right side and closed on the left side.

ART provided all kinds of improvement for the system, but did not do much to fix the acoustic asymmetry problem. From what Trinnov dealers are pitching, they believe they could partially fix the problem. I am obviously cautious as they are conflicted in providing advice, but then the mic they use is something that should theoretically work better than our gold standard UMIC1.

One of the particularly intersting things Trinnov does (or tries to do) is that Speaker positions are "virtual" ... if the physical speaker is not in the correct position , Trinnov can (theoretically) reposition it....

This was reviewed in early Trinnov releases and reviews - before they moved to specialising in custom HT's (where the virtual positioning became more or less redundant!)

Sony seems to do something similar in their current generation AVR's

For many of us that have to live with a less than perfect listening room that doubles as loung/living etc... that feature would be very valuable - and it was included in the early days of Trinnov in Sherwood AVR's - at a reasonable price!

It really would be nice to see that feature licenced more broadly, potentially seperately from Trinnov's main AVP's....

Its main value is for the mass market where custom rooms are highly unusual... but Trinnov is no longer in that market.