KEF LS60 Wireless Just Announced

[jae]

This is an intriguing looking product to be sure...but I'm sort of scratching my head a little over the point of the design.

It seems to be trying to combine a "lifestyle" product, deliberately targeting reducing the profile and size while at the same time asking "audiophile" pricing.

In other words: the aesthetic design goals seem to target people who aren't in to the gear (hence making it more lifestyle diminutive), yet the people most likely to be interested in paying that much money are audiophiles, people in to the gear, who would generally have less problem with a larger design.

Don't get me wrong, I personally really care about aesthetics and don't want monster speakers dominating my room. But all the excitement about these speakers is coming from the audiophile community who would pay these type of significant sums for speakers. In that context, the amount of effort that went in to squeezing these new LS60s to such a diminutive profile seems almost a bit odd. Most are excited about the potential performance of these speakers "a smaller, more affordable active version of the Blade." Seems to me the audience willing to pay for such an item would mostly have been fine with a somewhat wider baffle or somewhat larger cabinet size, for instance.

But, hey, wuddoiknow? Kef no doubt has done their marketing research.

This is always what the LS- series has been about and marketed towards. That's also why they added active/streaming and "wireless" to the LS50s later on.

 

[voodooless]

Other aspect could be - 4" midrange crossed at 250Hz with 4 woofers per cabinet is a serious workout for that little fellow.

Luckily the crossover is at 390 Hz.

 

[ethanchiu10]

Do they say anything about multi-channel support with the HDMI input? I couldn't find anything so I'm leaning towards no...

I feel like Kef is so close to enabling a fully wireless LS50 II + LS60 setup with this product.

A 5 channel LS60w + LS50w setup where you only have to plug in power to each, and a single HDMI to one of them would be sooo good.

 

[Zvu]

Luckily the crossover is at 390 Hz.

Not by luck or by chance... Higher crossover point is there for more than one reason.

 

[harkpabst]

One aspect could be - If you want a narrow cabinet, you must use smaller diameter midrange. If you use smaller midrange, you don't have enough cone surface area and distortion goes up at low frequencies. If distortion goes up at lows, you must move the crossover point higher.

Other aspect could be - 4" midrange crossed at 250Hz with 4 woofers per cabinet is a serious workout for that little fellow. Since at Kef they had to downsize the midrange voice coil, it now has less power than it's larger brothers from R and Blade/Ref series (they've reduced voice coil diameter for the midrange to get more cone surface area for it, but now they had to use 19mm tweeter since larger 25mm one wont fit). That probably pushed the mid-tweeter crossover higher aswell.

They could have used Nd magnet behind the midrange which would add more SPL capability for the small cone but that would probably drove the price up significantly.

There could be more but one must understand that in loudspeaker design you are dealing with chain reactions rather than isolated problems/goals so engineers with "tunnel vision" are less desirable

You didn't get me right.

The surprising thing is not the actual size of any of the drivers. The surprising thing is how they startet with the MF/LF crossover point (about) set and worked out all other implications (including driver size) from there.

Magnet material used for the Uni-Q midrange is certainly not the limiting factor in the design of LS60 Wireless. Increasing the driver's sensitivity does not change the displacement volume requirements at all, so for a given effective piston area you still need the same Xmax for playing down to the target lower frequency limit.

 

[Daka]

what I like about them is finally this not similar looking to R series. As much as reference is slightly better the looks didn’t stand out enough to justify the cost difference. This is mini blade basically. Blade for smaller rooms perhaps. Blade for the masses. It’s still expensive to many but, if you consider you don’t need stereo amp and they will go low as great tower speakers on the market can then it’s making it very good value. Exactly something that was missing IMHO. If they deliver on sound, with wider dispersion, wider sound stage they might turn out not only as good as reference but maybe even better for playing in rooms under 90db

 

[Vacceo]

A 5 channel LS60w + LS50w setup where you only have to plug in power to each, and a single HDMI to one of them would be sooo good.

An XLR and no streaming devices version that esentially works as a conventional subwoofer, would be even better. Get you fave processor, plug, adjust, and enjoy.

 

[firedog]

Thanks… Good God, they are ugly. Something about the shape of them just looks so awkward to me.

I like it.

 

[KMO]

An XLR and no streaming devices version that esentially works as a conventional subwoofer, would be even better. Get you fave processor, plug, adjust, and enjoy.

In practice though, the extra variant would then be a "professional" version and cost more.

It's usually more cost-effective to buy the higher-volume production consumer thing with all the crap you don't need and ignore it. But lack of balanced input is a potential noise problem if you're having to run the RCAs some distance from the processor (and you have an XLR processor, of course).

At least this will work fine with the RCA connections in that set-up. It has the auto-wake functionality on them, so basically has all the functionality KEF's own active subwoofers have. They've not left anything out. (Their subs don't have XLR on them either ).

 

[firedog]

Didn't read the whole 30 pages. Attached the info sheet.
These are supposedly going to be $7000 a pair in the US.

Essentially full range, with a lot of connectivity and an app that allows for customization. It seems to be something of a tech hybrid between their previous wireless speakers and some of their more expensive speaker models.
Based on their other speakers it will sound quite good and is essentially a complete high end system for $7k.
Looks like a good deal to me. I bet it will sell well, even if the group here isn't an audience for it.

 

[Daka]

In practice though, the extra variant would then be a "professional" version and cost more.

It's usually more cost-effective to buy the higher-volume production consumer thing with all the crap you don't need and ignore it. But lack of balanced input is a potential noise problem if you're having to run the RCAs some distance from the processor (and you have an XLR processor, of course).

At least this will work fine with the RCA connections in that set-up. It has the auto-wake functionality on them, so basically has all the functionality KEF's own active subwoofers have. They've not left anything out. (Their subs don't have XLR on them either ).

there are active rca ->xlr converters so don't think that is a problem

 

[Vacceo]

there are active rca ->xlr converters so don't think that is a problem

The problem is overpaying for features you will not use.

I think these speakers are fantastic, just as the LS50 wireless II are fantastic too, but I reckon they are not the best option for a multichannel setup.

 

[Daka]

The problem is overpaying for features you will not use.

I think these speakers are fantastic, just as the LS50 wireless II are fantastic too, but I reckon they are not the best option for a multichannel setup.

For primary cinema use I wouldn't think any audiophile speaker was - you just won't hear the difference IMO. And of course having amp built in is paying for something you don't really need in this case.
But for dual use why not? Don't see a reason why you can't use them as FL/FR. Full range speaker essentially.
XLR is not a deal breaker and only will matter to people who run long cables to processor - which btw I would think is very rare in living room setup (majority of people prefer to listen to music there rather than in dedicated cinema room).

 

[Vacceo]

Because getting a total of 11 speakers for an atmos system are a lot of unused streaming devices.

Yes, I could use a lot of passive ls50's, but I'd still need to use an external amp.

 

[Axo1989]

For primary cinema use I wouldn't think any audiophile speaker was - you just won't hear the difference IMO. And of course having amp built in is paying for something you don't really need in this case.
But for dual use why not? Don't see a reason why you can't use them as FL/FR. Full range speaker essentially.
XLR is not a deal breaker and only will matter to people who run long cables to processor - which btw I would think is very rare in living room setup (majority of people prefer to listen to music there rather than in dedicated cinema room).

I'd say these KEFs aren't designed for multichannel/home theatre. The speakers are a primary/secondary pair with the former sending signal to the latter. I imagine the streamer resides in the primary unit. That doesn't mean you can't hack a workable multichannel setup though, but it'll be suck-it-and-see initially. People may have done this using LS50 Wireless already, which would help.

 

[Daka]

Because getting a total of 11 speakers for an atmos system are a lot of unused streaming devices.

Yes, I could use a lot of passive ls50's, but I'd still need to use an external amp.

Oh you mean to use wireless speakers for entire setup.
Unless KEF comes up with tech to allow wireless streaming of channels from processor it wouldn't be good
You would need to run long cables to each speaker and have most a XLR converter for lengths like that - I do wonder if active converter would be required or simply passive xlr to RCA Cable to connect to KEF wireless speaker?
But anyway they are too expensive, multichannel amp + ls50 much cheaper

 

[Daka]

I'd say these KEFs aren't designed for multichannel/home theatre. The speakers are a primary/secondary pair with the former sending signal to the latter. That doesn't mean you can't hack a workable setup though, but it'll be suck-it-and-see initially.

You can connect them together and have low latency though. It comes with two options wireless and wire connected.
they did think about that too
With wired also enables higher bitrate - 24/192 vs 24/96

 

[Axo1989]

You can connect them together and have low latency though. It comes with two options wireless and wire connected.
they did think about that too

Yes, certainly. Isn't that wired connection the same thing though, receiving via the primary speaker and sending to the secondary? So not the same as Genelec models where the speakers are identical and you daisy-chain via AES (from memory).

 

[KMO]

I'd say these KEFs aren't designed for multichannel/home theatre. The speakers are a primary/secondary pair with the former sending signal to the latter. I imagine the streamer resides in the primary unit. That doesn't mean you can't hack a workable multichannel setup though, but it'll be suck-it-and-see initially.

No hacks are required, unless you're utterly determined to avoid transmitting the signal analoguely.

You simply connect a pair of AVR pre-outs to the auxiliary input on the master speaker of each LS60 pair, and turn on "auto wake-up" for that input. It's not really more complex than attaching an active subwoofer.

How well more than one set of LS60s in a room works, with wireless transmission between each pair, I don't know though. But you could cable between the pairs - and the pairing of the speakers can be arbitrary - whatever results in easiest cables runs. You could pair up the LS60s as L+Ls, R+Rs, Lrs+Rrs.

Fully workable, just as the LS50 Wireless II is. The benefit of active drive for the LS50 Wireless II doesn't justify the huge price increment over the LS50 Meta, but this is an inherently active design, so you don't really have a choice.

The price differential between a hypothetical LS60 "dumb active" and the current "smart active" would not be as big as between the passive and smart active versions of the LS50. Indeed, there may not be any real cost saving possible, after accounting for the cost of smaller production runs. So there may never be a "dumb" option.

 

[Axo1989]

You simply connect a pair of AVR pre-outs to the auxiliary input on the master speaker of each LS60 pair, and turn on "auto wake-up" for that input.

Got it, that makes sense. I wasn't expecting it to work simply with wireless, without KEF doing a multichannel app. There's the odd number problem, but that happens anyway (you'd and up with a spare secondary or a different centre or something). Non-digital would disturb my OCD, but I expect it would sound fine. Fits my definition of "hack" but that's semantics (and AVRs disturb my OCD but that's another issue).