From this statement it is obvious that you have never listened to the LS50 Meta. They want to be a subwoofer, they try really hard if you don't high pass them. Close to the wall and with a full range signal the base will get very "thick", you'd be surprised. However this will degrade performance and for the sake of the orchestra one should let a singer be a singer and a bassist be a bassist.
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I agree to someone coming from an audiophile background listening to the LS50 Meta @>86db soundpressure on bass heavy tracks you will be disappointed. I don't know why KEF has layed them out this way, probably because they also want to target the average "boomer", people who think the more boom the better.
I know, it's physical limitations, they couldn't do better. The 'boomers' are those who essentially are not into hifi, but need a representative speaker that will just and only play in the background, not interfering with calm conversations in an always tidy household with some disposable income, no kids. So far, if there was an urge to 'listen' actively the music would be from the 'classics', Beethoven, but not Wagner with comparitively very low bass content No experiments, not for me.
I am very confident HP@90Hz and in addition a reduction of the baseline (which can be acompensated for in the sub volume) by up to -12db (as posted above) is sufficient to enable them to play with absolute precision and tonal clarity up to a very loud volume, because this is what I hear even in my only lightly treaded room. I'm not arguing you could fill an entire loft with them. Those are made for a small to medium size appartment, therefore I am not sure you apply the correct standarts. Of course, one would be advised to EQ/DSP them, which is what I am going to do once I have decided to buy miniDSP or Arc Studio 4 or something different. You'd have to show me a speaker with a coax design that has roughly the same size and weight and is within the same price range (+-300) in order to compare the LS50 Meta.
You're just guessing, right, that 90Hz would be good enough? You may not weigh in the steep fall of amplitude towards bass and still risng distortion in absolute terms (dBs, not %), that will shine through, let alone intermodulation.
Rooms have room gain and nobody with sanity would want a less than 5" driver membrane to play down flat to 40 Hz without a subwoofer.
I own both JBL305, LS50, LS50 Meta since they were released and the JBL while great for the money has no chance to a LS50 Meta in most aspects, in the end they are both only for listening distances up to 2 meters for serious fidelity and even better combined with a sub, in such applications the LS50(M) simply shines and has even winned me over some similar sized Neumann and Genelec monitors which I used to own and sold again(!).
I considered that expressis verbis, I gave it 10dB room gain. Sure, to use that little (effectively) 4" cone that low is not sane. That's the criticism, namely, that even humble pop would require that extension - full throttle! Otherwise the sound is not presented in fidelity.
The preference, how could I argue against that?
Watts are not important for music consumers, acoustic output is and for listeners in reasonable distance where high reproduction fidelity can be achieved with such relatively wide radiating loudspeakers (so in this case ≤ 2 meters) and typical near wall placement and room gain, decent reproduction can be achieved with average SPLs around 80-85 dB for a stereo pair (we shouldn't forget the addition of almost 6 dB in the bass region) and with subwoofers and a X-over above 80 Hz even higher.
But the question of the consumer was about the watss, and I steered it to acoustic output. Then people (owners?) started complaining. Sorry.
You can't recommend an active monitoring set, that's a whole nother ballpark, even though, as thewas pointed out, the LS50M actually can confidently play in that league. Why? Because they have near to perfect in room resonance in the most important frequency ranges as I refered to in this post (fixed link). Now you come along trying to ride the fact that the drivers are not cut and will play a far too deep base for what the speakers are capable of, therefore distorting performance beginning from ~85db with a steep rise in THD as you push them (out of their capability) further. There is no surprise here. Nobody with some audiophile demands will run them without a High Pass, which diminishes the problem and pushes the point at which they will distort much further down the line. How far? I don't know. Amir has not tested them with a HP. Maybe they will play up to 96db maybe even 100db, maybe "only" 92db, I would be fine in any case. Now you say "they need 200hz HP or complete trash". Maybe if you want them to play 106db, but this is no usecase for anyone with normal hearing anymore.
| Measurement Area | Audible Difference? | Original LS50 | LS50 Meta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frequency Response | No | ||
| THD (Distortion) | Unlikely | 0.1% | 0.07% |
| Sensitivity | No | ~85 dB | ~85 dB |
| Impedance (load) | Minimal | 3.8Ω min | 4.0Ω min |
| Cabinet Resonance | Unlikely | ½ |
Fixed.
Which you are of course free to do. Again, no one doubts the difference in several measurements (you just point out one). The question remains whether those are hearable or not. I have my opinion, you have yours, ChatGPT also has one, etc etc.
I learnt to ignore AI when I saw that it gave equal weight to the opinions of an acknowledged expert, and a beginner when I asked about a particular espresso machine. The above looks to have ignored frequency response, among other things. AI does not think, it’s more Artifical YouTuber than Artificial Intelligence.
