And in some cases when more than 1 ppl are usual listener a point source is sometimes more forgiving in sweet spot. The LS50s are more for casual back home drop into sofa and stream your album for relaxing, and can quickly turn into a gaming or tv speaker when you settled.
genelecs are better speaker objectively but you need a whole setup for pc to properly and easily control volume and source select, better for a desktop geek station or mixer use
Not true. Digital input Genelecs (or Neumann etc.) are
extremely easy and simple to cleanly connect to a PC. All it takes is a single $20 USB->SPDIF adapter and $10 for an RCA->XLR and XLR->XLR cable, and you are
done.
Analog-only input Genelecs/Neumanns/etc. are nearly as easy but yes you’ll want an external preamp DAC for those, which can be more expensive and requires more wires. But it’s not fair to compare an analog Genelec to a digital KEF, so this case isn’t even relevant.
I'm not talking about comparative FR: the KEFs have their own DAC and auto-EQ. I don't think there's much debate that the Genelecs win out in purity of sound, but that's because they're designed to give you that and only that: analog into the back and straight out of the front. The KEFs are a completely different and much more complicated beast. I don't know whether that's good or bad in this case, I'm just providing additional information since other products have been brought into the discussion.
They don’t just win in some notion of purity. Similarly priced Genelec’s are a league better than KEF LS50 Wireless, in all regards, period. This is reflected in the measurements and my personal experience.
The R3 might have a shot competing with similarly priced Genelecs, but not if you are looking for compact performance or an active speaker because the R3 is a large bookshelf. Other than the R3, I really don’t think anything from KEF is particularly competitive right now vs alternates.
The only reason to buy them is if you’re really attached to the aesthetics. Which is fine. But let’s not pretend buying a KEF LS50W or LSX is gonna get you the best performance for the price and form factor — because it’s just not. Genelec and Neumann will. But, it is understandable that prices may vary in different countries and this may tip the price-performance ratio balance somewhat, in some cases.
The LS50 (wireless?) is too big for your desk. The LSX is cuter and more colorful (avoid the white) and will sound fine. I have the green ones, and they go very nicely with my teak dresser.
I couldn’t disagree more. Saying that a compact tiny speaker like the LS50 is too big for their desk is as absurd as me saying your LSX is comically undersized for any serious audiophile, and that mixing green with teak is hideous and appallingly tasteless. In other words, I would be
wrong to project my aesthetic preferences onto someone else I know nothing about, who may have very different yet subjectively valid aesthetic preferences.
Concretely: What size speaker is appropriate for someone’s desk aesthetically is entirely subjective. Objectively, bigger is almost always better. Personally I find my Genelec 8351B’s to be the perfect size desktop speakers for me both subjectively (looks amazing) and objectively (SPL and bass capabilities), and yet they make the LS50 look tiny in comparison. So clearly your aesthetic taste does not match mine, and that’s ok. But similarly we should not assume OP has a strong preference one way or another, or that because you prefer smaller or I prefer larger that we should push our subjective preferences here on the OP.
