KEF LS60 Wireless Just Announced

[ban25]

Today I spoke with a Kef sales representative at the “Noir et blanc” hifi event in Brussels, Belgium. https://www.noir-et-blanc.com/blog/ Very well organized but few people attended today, strange.

I asked him if Kef will ever solve the LS60 problem that the wireless speed drops over time, leading to drop outs. After rebooting, unplug/plug everything is fine agsin, but few hours/days later the speed drops. Replacing routers / access points and changing network setting, nothing seems to work. This is also clearly shown in the kef app, where you can run a network speed test. It drops from 35-40mbps in the beginning to well below 10, 5-6 mbps sometimes.

A bunch of talk followed which exposed another problem (losing signal after switching cabled interconnection between the two speakers), but there was little knowledge imo so that I doubt if they will ever fix this. Solution in the end was “use a cable”. I said the speaker is called LS60 wireless.



There were three kef rooms, one with the blade meta:

View attachment 403753

Stacking the KC92 subs like that is an idea I did not need to have rolling around in my head around Black Friday.

 

[Descartes]

Is the LS60 close at all to the Blade Meta sound?

Unlikely but probably close enough

 

[Ciobi69]

Unlikely but probably close enough

Blades has bigger drivers and it’s a passive design without functions like the ls60 two different stuff

 

[Pearljam5000]

Blades has bigger drivers and it’s a passive design without functions like the ls60 two different stuff

Yeah but I was referring to the SQ only.

 

[mns3dhm]

Unlikely but probably close enough

Actually Kalman Rubinson (he posts here frequently) made this exact comparison when he reviewed the LS60 in Stereophile.

 

[Lagtime]

Today I spoke with a Kef sales representative at the “Noir et blanc” hifi event in Brussels, Belgium. https://www.noir-et-blanc.com/blog/ Very well organized but few people attended today, strange.

I asked him if Kef will ever solve the LS60 problem that the wireless speed drops over time, leading to drop outs. After rebooting, unplug/plug everything is fine agsin, but few hours/days later the speed drops. Replacing routers / access points and changing network setting, nothing seems to work. This is also clearly shown in the kef app, where you can run a network speed test. It drops from 35-40mbps in the beginning to well below 10, 5-6 mbps sometimes.

I've had my LS60s about one month shy of a year. For the first 6 months I streamed to them 10+ hours a day over my TP Link Deco mesh network, and I still play them several hours a day either for background music, critical listening or as speakers for my TV (HDMI). They have never dropped out, and speed has always been 25 - 30 Mbs.

No idea why some folks have issues and others don't.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Actually Kalman Rubinson (he posts here frequently) made this exact comparison when he reviewed the LS60 in Stereophile.

Stereophile KEF LS60 Review

 

[NYfan2]

Is the LS60 close at all to the Blade Meta sound?

I heard a direct comparison between the Blade One Meta and LS60 with a house/edm song.

During a demo of the new Reference series Meta also the Blade and the LS60 were in the demo room and after the session with the Reference series some music was played on the Blade One Meta and on the LS60 when a house/edm song was played one person asked if we could hear this on the LS60, because the song was streamed from Qobuz it was switched within seconds to the LS60.
I have to say I was really amazed how close the LS60 come to the sound of the Blade. There is a difference but the LS60 come very close and what made it more impressive was that the music was played pretty loud.
Ofcourse it was not a blind test and the levels were only matched by hearing but the LS60 really impressed me.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I heard a direct comparison between the Blade One Meta and LS60 with a house/edm song.

During a demo of the new Reference series Meta also the Blade and the LS60 were in the demo room and after the session with the Reference series some music was played on the Blade One Meta and on the LS60 when a house/edm song was played one person asked if we could hear this on the LS60, because the song was streamed from Qobuz it was switched within seconds to the LS60.
I have to say I was really amazed how close the LS60 come to the sound of the Blade. There is a difference but the LS60 come very close and what made it more impressive was that the music was played pretty loud.
Ofcourse it was not a blind test and the levels were only matched by hearing but the LS60 really impressed me.

Impressive
Thanks

 

[Unit]

I've had my LS60s about one month shy of a year. For the first 6 months I streamed to them 10+ hours a day over my TP Link Deco mesh network, and I still play them several hours a day either for background music, critical listening or as speakers for my TV (HDMI). They have never dropped out, and speed has always been 25 - 30 Mbs.

No idea why some folks have issues and others don't.

a few reasons (1) others do not use mesh, they have a dedicated AP serving the LS60. Mesh systems has overlapping wifi signals from multiple APs and your speakers may be switching between APs (outside of your control and you won't notice it normally). If you're lucky it switches often enough you don't experience the issue, but if unlucky it just makes the issue appear random and harder to diagnose. (2) you may power your speakers off at the mains each time, or your network reboots every night, or there is any other setting, set up, or condition that prevents the speakers from remaining connected to the same AP for too long, (3) the bugs in the hardware of later batches of LS60s was fixed. they may also have fixed the firmware but I've not tested since I automated my network to force the LS60s to reconnect daily.

 

[TSB]

A note about mesh. They often suck and cause problems, even with standard compliant and certified WiFi implementations. Impossible for brands to fix all problems related to that. I have TP Link Deco myself and have many problems with multiple devices.

 

[voodooless]

I have TP Link Deco myself and have many problems with multiple devices

Nr. 1 tip is to disable fast roaming. It basically eliminated all the issues I had with the Deco system. I have 7 Deco access points and I'm very pleased with the performance, especially the WiFi 7 units.

 

[Soniclife]

Nr. 1 tip is to disable fast roaming. It basically eliminated all the issues I had with the Deco system. I have 7 Deco access points and I'm very pleased with the performance, especially the WiFi 7 units.

Same. I have a weekly reboot scheduled as well, I've never found any network kit to be 100% stable long term, though the decos are very good.

LS60s should not be jumping about access points, if they are you can force them onto the one that makes sense.

 

[Moonbase]

I have audio hardwired. My ASUS access points tend to move connections so as to balance themselves out, quite often. Never have to reboot thu.

 

[Koeitje]

Yeah it's 100% how people have setup their networks. I've worked for an ISP and 99% of the problems were having could be traced back to their wireless network setup (both in terms of software settings and the physical hardware/location).

 

[Puddingbuks]

I've had my LS60s about one month shy of a year. For the first 6 months I streamed to them 10+ hours a day over my TP Link Deco mesh network, and I still play them several hours a day either for background music, critical listening or as speakers for my TV (HDMI). They have never dropped out, and speed has always been 25 - 30 Mbs.

No idea why some folks have issues and others don't.

I don’t know either. I replaced my access points, used different network IDs, different wifi bands, different channels - problem still exists. With my ipad in the same spot I reach way over 100mbps. Internet connection is a whopping 500mbps.

Anyways, I shazamed many songs @ the Noir et Blanc hifi show, and I added them to my “Dutch audio event 2024” tidal playlist. Noir et Blanc are the last +/- 30 tracks, starting with “Black belt” by John Grant. Some nice tracks, I skipped the “Keith don’t go” clichés.

Enjoy

Dutch Audio Event 2024 (Charles)

Listen to Dutch Audio Event 2024 (Charles) on TIDAL

tidal.com

 

[Descartes]

Nr. 1 tip is to disable fast roaming. It basically eliminated all the issues I had with the Deco system. I have 7 Deco access points and I'm very pleased with the performance, especially the WiFi 7 units.

You need WiFi 7 compatible devices otherwise it’s not worth it or is it?

 

[voodooless]

You need WiFi 7 compatible devices otherwise it’s not worth it or is it?

It is if you have more than one of those Decos and use > 2.5 GBit wired networking.

 

[Descartes]

Nr. 1 tip is to disable fast roaming. It basically eliminated all the issues I had with the Deco system. I have 7 Deco access points and I'm very pleased with the performance, especially the WiFi 7 units.

How do you do that in the App?

 

[voodooless]

How do you do that in the App?

Advanced-> Fast Roaming