I don't really think it's necessary to run the EQ to compare each speaker, the easy way of comparing them would be to run 1 of each for the Left and Right speaker and play your songs in mono while being able to switch back and forth instantly while blindfolded. You'll have to level match them and if you plan on using subs I would run the test with a crossover in place as to not give the R5 such a big bass advantage.
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KEF LS50 Bookshelf Speaker Review
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I don't really think it's necessary to run the EQ to compare each speaker, the easy way of comparing them would be to run 1 of each for the Left and Right speaker and play your songs in mono while being able to switch back and forth instantly while blindfolded. You'll have to level match them and if you plan on using subs I would run the test with a crossover in place as to not give the R5 such a big bass advantage.
That's a very nice thing you are considering for you father.The prices were just off Amazon (Canadian) and a couple Canadian online retailers I found from a quick Google search. It seems they are market on 'sale' and the passives and actives are usually ~$2000 and ~$3000 CAD, respectively. I'd be a lot more comfortable buying the passives used than the actives of course, but don't mind paying for new ones at those prices I mentioned before.
I have actually never owned active speakers in my life or even used many bookshelf speakers admittedly. I was originally going to get the LS50 passives but as it is a gift for my elderly father with health problems I feel I may just go with the actives to keep things economical, because I would undoubtedly be tempted to spend more than double or triple the price difference on preamp, amp, streamer/dac etc. Many reviews I have heard mentioned it takes quite a bit of capable gear to get them on par with the actives, and even then the actives may still be better.
He is still using his reel-to-reel, TOTL Sansui Receiver, and speakers (https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sansui/sp-x7700.shtml - nothing special in today's day and age) from over 40 years ago. So I think that the actives may be a more simplistic setup he can just use with his phone, and perhaps CD player, and clear some clutter and space, and I am planning to get him a subscription to Tidal or Qobuz to go along with it. Only thing I am concerned about is because of their size, perhaps they will not sound as good off axis or when he is listening from another room?
Admittedly I have a bit of an ulterior motive though- if I like the sound I'll be buying a pair for myself as well
I was hoping to use the Klippel measurements to do my EQ also but the more I compare these to others including Soundstage and the Anechoic spin from a study, it seems like the Klippel puts too much emphasis on that 5k region and almost none at 2k, which most measurements show are the main resonance in the LS50. I'm curious if you've compared your MMM filters with the ones based on the Klippel spin and your thoughts?
Here are the 3 listening windows in REW to compare, the Soundstage is actually an average of 2 of the 15 degree curves and the 30 degree curve, I figured that was better for me since I am about 20 degrees off-axis. The Soundstage and the LW from the Spin I found are remarkably similar, while the ASR LW has the odd peak at 5k.
Then my MMM measurement without EQ in red and EQ in green showing the much larger peak is right around 2k, matching very closely with your MMM measurement. It seems that if we use the ASR LW, we'll end up taking way too much out of 5k and not enough from the 2k region.
Pepperjack
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Is there really so little variation expected between units?
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In good engineered drivers the variation is usually less then half dB or so.
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I use my LS50s since the last years as my desktop monitors so the influence of its surface can't be ignored, but I sonically also prefer my MMM based correction than just an ASR LW based one:
Same for my Kali IN-8, linearizing just the ASR LW doesn't sound as smooth to me (as it fills up too much the on-axis drop around 10 kHz creating a bump there in the sound power) as my MMM based correction.
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The Hi-Fi News 2012 reviewed ones had "top drawer" pair matching:
Source: http://www.kef.com/uploads/files/en/review/LS50_HFN_0712.pdf
Here are measurements of my pair:
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mul...raw-drivers-factory-cabinets-simulations.html
Modified crossover is in post no.5
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mul...raw-drivers-factory-cabinets-simulations.html
Modified crossover is in post no.5
As for consistency in Kef, here is raw measurement of my R300 midranges:
https://i.postimg.cc/GpXvj2Sg/srednjetonci.png
Gate is rather short here but enough to make the differences visible. I adapted the crossover to make them measure and sound the same (0.9mH series in one and 1mH on other) but my ocd doesn't like asymmetry of that sort
https://i.postimg.cc/GpXvj2Sg/srednjetonci.png
Gate is rather short here but enough to make the differences visible. I adapted the crossover to make them measure and sound the same (0.9mH series in one and 1mH on other) but my ocd doesn't like asymmetry of that sort
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Unfortunately the plots of post #5 don't show up without registration.
On the other hand maybe you were unlucky or the HFN magazine and I were just lucky, just did quick nearfield measurements (5cm from the driver) of my pair and the differences seem to be less than 1dB and similar to above HFN ones:
Pepperjack
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Well I’m not on the same level as you guys but i will share my observations for what it’s worth. I finally got to blind comparison ls50 to the r5 and while it was very close I consistently scores the r5 higher in everything I was looking at, with the exception of one song-hey Jude, where it was pretty even. On Angel by Sarah McLachlan it was an absolute no contest, a big enough difference that I had to go back and check the volume level dB afterwards. The ls50 sounded very very good but the r5 was just like, totally immersive and fantastic. I had no idea which was which at the time, was actually losing tack of if I was listening to a or b until after the song when my daughter would tell me, just scoring the song components as best I could each time.
That's mostly expected, did you normalize the bass at all between them or just run them both full range? Were your impressions mostly based on the bass or more the mids/highs?
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I am very new to this so my observations are of limited value and it’s possible I messed up in a variety of ways but:
1. everything was a bit clearer and cleaner for the r5. Not enough that I ever thought the ls50 was bad, but almost always scored it a notch higher across the board. In any one song I would have said it was almost too close to call, but after seeing that I scored it as such for every song but one I was satisfied that it was real enough, but close enough that after a week living with one or the other I can’t imagine “missing” anything.
Cleaner tighter bass and slightly better sounding highs to me in a to b though.
2. The r5 was harder to localize and felt more like there was a stage performance happening in front. This wasn’t always the case, I suspect due to the recordings? But in some songs like Angel it was very obvious. I had thought that would be reversed actually and is the main reason I have chosen it between the two despite costing so much more.
I set it up and calibrated via audyssey xt32 for the ls50. Was planning to
Rerun it for the r5 and compare them again, but since it won when Calibrated for the ls50 I figure that’s not necessary. I used my subwoofer for both. I had it set to lfe+main and had the crossover set to 80 (surprisingly audessey wanted the ls50 to be at 60hz...earlier it wanted the r5 at 40 (used both for about a week as my main speakers) But, I left it at 80hz for the test so Bass was pretty similar as far as I could tell blind folded, the r5 was cleaner and scored higher by a point or so in bass across all the songs, but with the sub it wasn’t super obvious to me, just generally better. Certainly wasn’t obvious enough that I was able to say one was clearly the r5 (which would have been obvious without the sub) Going to compare them to my Unifi toMorrow but unfortunately I get a strange resonance sound either from the speaker or in my room around 250hz and again at 600isn from the Unifi so if I can’t stop that it’s not going to be possible to be blind for long. Also, for some reason audessey keeps thinking that both my Unifi are phase reversed, didn’t have that problem before I switched my room around and neither the r5 nor ls50 Have that problem in the same position so, what the heck is that I don’t know. Had the Unifi for about a year and a half now.
after that need to test some Focal Aria 926 and make a descision as the Best Buy return window (extended for Covid) is coming up on me...haha, crazy days.
I have them on a Niles SI2100 amp.
1. everything was a bit clearer and cleaner for the r5. Not enough that I ever thought the ls50 was bad, but almost always scored it a notch higher across the board. In any one song I would have said it was almost too close to call, but after seeing that I scored it as such for every song but one I was satisfied that it was real enough, but close enough that after a week living with one or the other I can’t imagine “missing” anything.
Cleaner tighter bass and slightly better sounding highs to me in a to b though.
2. The r5 was harder to localize and felt more like there was a stage performance happening in front. This wasn’t always the case, I suspect due to the recordings? But in some songs like Angel it was very obvious. I had thought that would be reversed actually and is the main reason I have chosen it between the two despite costing so much more.
I set it up and calibrated via audyssey xt32 for the ls50. Was planning to
Rerun it for the r5 and compare them again, but since it won when Calibrated for the ls50 I figure that’s not necessary. I used my subwoofer for both. I had it set to lfe+main and had the crossover set to 80 (surprisingly audessey wanted the ls50 to be at 60hz...earlier it wanted the r5 at 40 (used both for about a week as my main speakers) But, I left it at 80hz for the test so Bass was pretty similar as far as I could tell blind folded, the r5 was cleaner and scored higher by a point or so in bass across all the songs, but with the sub it wasn’t super obvious to me, just generally better. Certainly wasn’t obvious enough that I was able to say one was clearly the r5 (which would have been obvious without the sub) Going to compare them to my Unifi toMorrow but unfortunately I get a strange resonance sound either from the speaker or in my room around 250hz and again at 600isn from the Unifi so if I can’t stop that it’s not going to be possible to be blind for long. Also, for some reason audessey keeps thinking that both my Unifi are phase reversed, didn’t have that problem before I switched my room around and neither the r5 nor ls50 Have that problem in the same position so, what the heck is that I don’t know. Had the Unifi for about a year and a half now.
after that need to test some Focal Aria 926 and make a descision as the Best Buy return window (extended for Covid) is coming up on me...haha, crazy days.
I have them on a Niles SI2100 amp.
I posted my bedroom system earlier in the thread with the LS50s.
Unfortunately, I am partially disabled... that said, I had a helper today.
So, based on the positioning diagram as a starting point, I had her reposition the speakers to best approximate the wall distances front and back. Then played with toe-in angles from “0” to about 25* . Finally settled on having each speaker pointed on axis towards me in the listening position.
Result: imaging vastly improved; perceived depth of field somewhat improved; bass response more “natural
‘ (whatever that means); slightly excessive “brightness” (ibid) toned down.
Now, done visibly, totally subjective- so add whatever salt implicit to my opinion.
Due to the bedroom lay-out, I cannot get the equilateral triangle that I consider ideal, nonetheless... it turned out better than I had hoped.
Thanks to the Group of Contributors to this thread; otherwise I would not have been motivated to make the adjustments and reap the sonic benefits achieved!!
Unfortunately, I am partially disabled... that said, I had a helper today.
So, based on the positioning diagram as a starting point, I had her reposition the speakers to best approximate the wall distances front and back. Then played with toe-in angles from “0” to about 25* . Finally settled on having each speaker pointed on axis towards me in the listening position.
Result: imaging vastly improved; perceived depth of field somewhat improved; bass response more “natural
‘ (whatever that means); slightly excessive “brightness” (ibid) toned down.
Now, done visibly, totally subjective- so add whatever salt implicit to my opinion.
Due to the bedroom lay-out, I cannot get the equilateral triangle that I consider ideal, nonetheless... it turned out better than I had hoped.
Thanks to the Group of Contributors to this thread; otherwise I would not have been motivated to make the adjustments and reap the sonic benefits achieved!!
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I have found my LS50's work best with the crossover to the subs a little higher than 100 hz. Another forum member running a very similar system also uses 100 hz and he is considered to be an expert around here.
digitalfrost
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I also have LS50 and I cross them over at 100hz, and found that to be better than 80hz.
Thanks, should you ever stumple over whatever quality woofer that can cover 200Hz area and down situated right below LS50 then will imagine LS50 performance as satelite will really improve because band coverage get lifted above free air and combined enclosure impedance resonance area, problem often real world is get a clean symetric Linkwitz Riley cut out in acoustic domain at those frequency in a indoor enviroment, slopes seen below is of 2nd/4th/8th order Linkwitz Riley and even the 2nd order one is within bandwidth reach of LS50 coverage.
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