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KEF LS50 Meta vs KEF R3

Crosstalk

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I think you are a bit lost here.
Directivity in the woofer area is omnidirectional in the typical designs. like 99%.
i think u understood me wrong. I meant r3 has only uniq and a woofer. So, I meant if. R3 is placement dependent in real world from mids to highs, uniq isn’t helping much against traditional two way designs.also the advantage of it isn’t useful in higher r series speakers in a horizontal axes.
 

Crosstalk

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The top end from the R series is more gentle, is not that tipical details in your face that gonna make most recording sounding bad

But you can always boost the top end with EQ, there is plenty of headroom because the speaker can play very loud, so yeah you can boost the bass, mids or highs, there is no problem in adding more top end to the speaker.

The coaxial was never supposed to make the speaker less sensitive to placement, the woofers are the problem in the room and these woofer have the typical design woofer + port, they aren't cardiod. There is design like whaferdale evo 4.4 that have the port in the middle, these port are a little more room friendly than the back-ports.

It's the typical hard to get right design ( woofer + back port ). You must EQ the speaker-room.


If the top end it's the problem and you want more sparkle in the cymbls and more '' hifi '' sounding you can always add a High shelf filter in APO EQ, it's very easy to do the filter, once you do that adjust to your personal taste, personally the sparkle in my r7 it's fine to me
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Also, it’s not about hifi sound, it’s more about reference sound. See the graph of r11 and you can see it’s -3db at 10khz. I think your r7 is good in this aspect
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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i think u understood me wrong. I meant r3 has only uniq and a woofer. So, I meant if. R3 is placement dependent in real world from mids to highs, uniq isn’t helping much against traditional two way designs.also the advantage of it isn’t useful in higher r series speakers in a horizontal axes.
UNIQ is helping a lot, in real world you must have to place the ''toe-in'' using your personal preference. The toe-in are going to change the mids-highs.



The woofer are the typical design, you are going to need placement + room EQ
SPL%20Horizontal.png
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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See the 10khz
Yep, but for example we are talking about only -3dB, if the recording that are you listening is more bright than smooth that record are going to sound correctly in this speaker

Anyway, in this part you need to use your music and your taste, if the highs sound right out of the box or not, you can use a high shelf filter, if you want that part neutral add a High shelf filte 10khz@+3dB and listen the speaker again.
 

Crosstalk

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UNIQ is helping a lot, in real world you must have to place the ''toe-in'' using your personal preference. The toe-in are going to change the mids-highs.



The woofer are the typical design, you are going to need placement + room EQ
SPL%20Horizontal.png
Did you notice that r3, r7, r11 varies not just in terms of bass alone but also the highs are at different levels? So when I heard them, I didn’t feel like r7 was just extra bass to r3 or r11 was just even more bass to r7. I felt like they were totally different speakers from different brands yet having some DNA of the sound but it wasn’t the midrange. To me the best midrange out of the 4 was on the r5 but may be the bass wasn’t exciting the room modes there which would have gotten me that extra sense of midrange transparency on them. Honestly if I build a second smaller system I would buy the r5. It’s a child nobody cares and I want to adapt him!
 

Crosstalk

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Yep, but for example we are talking about only -3dB, if the recording that are you listening is more bright than smooth that record are going to sound correctly in this speaker

Anyway, in this part you need to use your music and your taste, if the highs sound right out of the box or not, you can use a high shelf filter, if you want that part neutral add a High shelf filte 10khz@+3dB and listen the speaker again.
Ok. I will try it when I get them. Need to wait few weeks until it gets home;) excited and worried at the same time.
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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Did you notice that r3, r7, r11 varies not just in terms of bass alone but also the highs are at different levels? So when I heard them, I didn’t feel like r7 was just extra bass to r3 or r11 was just even more bass to r7. I felt like they were totally different speakers from different brands yet having some DNA of the sound but it wasn’t the midrange. To me the best midrange out of the 4 was on the r5 but may be the bass wasn’t exciting the room modes there which would have gotten me that extra sense of midrange transparency on them. Honestly if I build a second smaller system I would buy the r5. It’s a child nobody cares and I want to adapt him!
Yes, they are a bit different, but listening them in room, the room are going to change the speaker more than they are, also the toe in are going to change them too.
The R5 is the speaker that doesn't got the attention because the shadow flare is smaller than the R3, R7, R11. And the best result are with the normal shadow flare instead the smaller from R5.
The R5 is the unique speaker with the smaller shadow flare.
 

alitomr1979

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@Descartes , I got the R2C and I think it is better for movies than the LS50.

LS50 probably sound more natural but the extra presence and the way R2C delivers sounds is better for movies. I am talking about kind of a soundstage, the way you get depth perception with it is very nice. I have been watching Boardwalk Empire since the day I bought it and what was noticeable and remarkable from the first moment was how when the action was in a bar or a place with a lot of things happening in different places, the speakers are able to distribute sounds all over, and place them in different positions in the room. This is compared to my Q600c. At this point my recommendation if movies is a big part of the equation is that you get the R3s with the R2C.
 
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Descartes

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@Descartes , I got the R2C and I think it is better for movies than the LS50.

LS50 probably sound more natural but the extra presence and the way R2C delivers sounds is better for movies. I am talking about kind of a soundstage, the way you get depth perception with it is very nice. I have been watching Boardwalk Empire since the day I bought it and what was noticeable and remarkable from the first moment was how when the action was in a bar or a place with a lot of things happening in different places, the speakers are able to distribute sounds all over, and place them in different positions in the room. This is compared to my Q600c. At this point my recommendation if movies is a big part of the equation is that you get the R3s with the R2C.
Thank you for your opinion how far do you sit from the speakers?

My conundrum is that the R series was launched in 2017 so they are five years old technology vs the LS50 meta was just released’
 

tecnogadget

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Thank you for your opinion how far do you sit from the speakers?

My conundrum is that the R series was launched in 2017 so they are five years old technology vs the LS50 meta was just released’
the New R series (2nd generation) was launched in LATE 2018...that's almost 2019.
 

mokanu

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Hey!

I have OG LS50, and considering Meta or R3 for the upgrade.

My current plan is to use coax speakers with 2x8in subs as woofers and 2x12in subs for the bass, to get flat response down to 25hz. I will use them in heavily dampened 4.5*3.5m/15x11,5ft room (100% celling and 100% of 3 walls covered with acoustic panels).

System would be used for music as near and mid field at 85db max in 2.5m/8ft distance. And coax speakers will be crossed at 200-500hz with woofers.

Im curious - what would be the difference in performance between 3 KEFs
 

Ataraxia

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Hey!

I have OG LS50, and considering Meta or R3 for the upgrade.

My current plan is to use coax speakers with 2x8in subs as woofers and 2x12in subs for the bass, to get flat response down to 25hz. I will use them in heavily dampened 4.5*3.5m/15x11,5ft room (100% celling and 100% of 3 walls covered with acoustic panels).

System would be used for music as near and mid field at 85db max in 2.5m/8ft distance. And coax speakers will be crossed at 200-500hz with woofers.

Im curious - what would be the difference in performance between 3 KEFs
It's very difficult to quantify the differences as you are getting very technical about how you want to set your system up. And placement, toe in, etc. all matter which could negate or improve any of the combinations you are considering.

I have generally found the use case differentiator between Metas and R3's being distance. I'm casually saying Metas less than 7 feet equilateral R3's greater than 7'. This is totally arbitrary and doesn't mean you can't use Metas for longer distances, like 10+ feet, or R'3's less than 7'.

I will say the R3's cross to low woofer at 400 hz and are bi-ampable. So if you want to truly separate tweet/mid coax from low freq mid-bass you have that in one box if you truly bi-amp them and minidsp, etc. Then sub with the minidsp for low bass.

If you try to do Metas tweet/mid, small sub mid bass, big sub low bass that sounds interesting and I'm not against it, but lot's of work.
 

alitomr1979

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Thank you for your opinion how far do you sit from the speakers?

My conundrum is that the R series was launched in 2017 so they are five years old technology vs the LS50 meta was just released’
I sit at about 8.9 feet apart from the speakers and the speakers are about 7 feet from each other. I had them at 8.9 feet apart, but experimenting to improve SQ and soundstage made me leave it where they are now as the best possible position to my ears.

If at this point you think KEF made something so remarkable in the past two years, get the LS50 MEta. Do remember they have the same UniQ driver version, whatever that means...
 

alitomr1979

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Hey!

I have OG LS50, and considering Meta or R3 for the upgrade.

My current plan is to use coax speakers with 2x8in subs as woofers and 2x12in subs for the bass, to get flat response down to 25hz. I will use them in heavily dampened 4.5*3.5m/15x11,5ft room (100% celling and 100% of 3 walls covered with acoustic panels).

System would be used for music as near and mid field at 85db max in 2.5m/8ft distance. And coax speakers will be crossed at 200-500hz with woofers.

Im curious - what would be the difference in performance between 3 KEFs
Read this thread. It has been answered from different perspectives and also with objective data. Good luck.
 
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envydd

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My summary of listening to the R3s, LS50s (og, meta, actives): for big room/distance use r3. Else ls50. I cannot find a huge difference in the sound signature beyond the simple neutral KEF sound.

When I really want something substantially better, I will get B&W 805d3/4 as they are a step above all the KEFs I have listened to for the genre of music I like (vocals, jazz etc). For instrumentals, the KEFs are as good for my ears.
 
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sonci99

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Yes, they are a bit different, but listening them in room, the room are going to change the speaker more than they are, also the toe in are going to change them too.
The R5 is the speaker that doesn't got the attention because the shadow flare is smaller than the R3, R7, R11. And the best result are with the normal shadow flare instead the smaller from R5.
The R5 is the unique speaker with the smaller shadow flare.
Can you specify please? What does this shadow flare does?
 
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