LS50 meta's plus sub vs More expensive speakers

[NYfan2]

As said before, unless you want a very small sub there are better and/or cheaper alternatives then the KC62
Have a look at this thread:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/subwoofer-comparison.20494/

There are enough members on the forum with LS50 and subs in their setup so it should be no problem to get good advice about a decent setup.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Thank you phoenixdogfan. My set up is intended for music, but your direction gives me food for thought. I'll have to test the options at the shop in the next few weeks to hear the differences using my current amp.

It also works just fine for music. I am experimenting with the Dephonica software xover for music and comparing it to JRiver.

 

[FrantzM]

My set up is the LS 50 metas with a single SVS SB2000, and my original LS 50s as surrounds for when I play movies. I'm currently crossing over at 100 hz. This is fairly new set up as I just got the Octo Research DAC 8, and I'm using JRiver as my surround processor and I've yet to integrate Dirac Live, but plan to in the next few days.

I can tell you the Metas sound absolutely great with the single sub. I'm currently crossing over at 100 hz, and I played The Dark Knight soundtrack this afternoon. There's point on "Why So Serious?" where there's low sub 20 hz pulsations are played, and even with the single sub my windows literally rattled, so I don't know if I feel I need a second sub. Thing is, human hearing is quite insensitive to distortions below 100 hz. Such distortions almost have to be at levels greater than 100 percent before they become audible at all. Mostly, multi sub set ups are intended to provide even bass levels at different listening positions in a room, so multiple listeners can experience the bass levels the same way, rather than to minimize perceived bass distortions.

I got you and you should be pleased.

A second sub will provide better sound overall... No only more bass .. Just overall, Better sound. It will take a while, lot of work, but more subs provide better sound. Fact.

Peace.

 

[FrantzM]

I need an ASR comparison to put the Kef KC l2 where it belongs

That's a lot of money for a modestly performing subwoofer. It is very small, true, but come on people!

Kef LS-50 Meta, a pair of SVS SB-1000 Pro or PB-1000 Pro. a way to control crossover frequency, slope and perform bass EQ? Say a miniDSP-2x4 HD in the system. Patience to learn how to measure, interpret and apply the measurements to the system... Heaven at around $5000 ... for many ..
Price listing of a system like that:

Kef LS-50 Meta $1600
miniDSP 2 x 4 HD with UMik-1 $350
Denon AVR-X3700 $1500
SVS SB-1000 (Pair) $1000
Lot of time to make this work including 1000 posts/queries to ASR .... $????? (kind of free-ish but ... )

A wonderful sounding system that will wipe the floor with many High End >$50,000 contraptions. Full range total package.
You can later add more speakers for, again a wonderful, full range Home Theater system...

The Meta are serious contenders...

 

[Eternals]

Thank you all for that vast expertise and experience decocted into your advice. I do have some buyer regret but, also lots of ideas to explore. Those ideas do sadly need to be filtered by income as I can't send the Hegel back after 2 months.
My objective is to get to the best hifi stereo audio sound that I can with the remaining £2000 ($2800) available. There is only one listening chair! My local shop is very understanding should I wish to experiment. I'll be reading more about miniDSP implementation, but probably trying a single sub with the Kef ls50 meta's as the start point. I'll be reading the many posts about choice of sub too.

 

[Eternals]

I need an ASR comparison to put the Kef KC l2 where it belongs

That's a lot of money for a modestly performing subwoofer. True it is very small but come on people!

Kef LS-50 Meta, a pair of SVS SB-1000 Pro or PB-1000 Pro. a way to control crossover frequency, slope and perform bass EQ? Say a miniDSP-2x4 HD in the system. Patience to learn how to measure, interpret and apply the measurements to the system... Heaven at around $5000 ... for many ..
Price listing of a system like that:

Kef LS-50 Meta $1600
miniDSP 2x HD with UMik $350
Denon AVR-X3700 $1500
SVS SB-1000 (Pair) $1000
Lot of time to make this work including 1000 posts/queries to ASR .... $????? (kind of free-ish but ... )

A wonderful sounding system that will wipe the floor with many High End >$50,000 contraptions. Full range total package.
You can later add more speakers for, again a wonderful, full range Home Theater system...

The Meta are serious contenders...

Thank you FrantzM. I'm bordering to tears knowing now what I could have had, however, the advice remains invaluable for my use case. I might not be able to get there for a while, but certainly will plan the route.

 

[NYfan2]

I need an ASR comparison to put the Kef KC l2 where it belongs

That's a lot of money for a modestly performing subwoofer. True it is very small but come on people!

Kef LS-50 Meta, a pair of SVS SB-1000 Pro or PB-1000 Pro. a way to control crossover frequency, slope and perform bass EQ? Say a miniDSP-2x4 HD in the system. Patience to learn how to measure, interpret and apply the measurements to the system... Heaven at around $5000 ... for many ..
Price listing of a system like that:

Kef LS-50 Meta $1600
miniDSP 2x HD with UMik $350
Denon AVR-X3700 $1500
SVS SB-1000 (Pair) $1000
Lot of time to make this work including 1000 posts/queries to ASR .... $????? (kind of free-ish but ... )

A wonderful sounding system that will wipe the floor with many High End >$50,000 contraptions. Full range total package.
You can later add more speakers for, again a wonderful, full range Home Theater system...

The Meta are serious contenders...

@FrantzM why do you need the miniDSP 2x HD if you also have the Denon AVR-X3700?
The Denon has 2x sub out and with Audyssy you can apply room correction.

I'm curious because I have a Denon AVC-X3700h on order.

 

[TankTop]

Thank you all for that vast expertise and experience decocted into your advice. I do have some buyer regret but, also lots of ideas to explore. Those ideas do sadly need to be filtered by income as I can't send the Hegel back after 2 months.
My objective is to get to the best hifi stereo audio sound that I can with the remaining £2000 ($2800) available. There is only one listening chair! My local shop is very understanding should I wish to experiment. I'll be reading more about miniDSP implementation, but probably trying a single sub with the Kef ls50 meta's as the start point. I'll be reading the many posts about choice of sub too.

The Hegel is a great integrated amplifier and will last you years, don’t have buyers remorse! Since it doesn’t have any room correction you should get a sub that does. Lastly just remember people have been enjoying music forever with far lower level equipment than you and this is a bit of an elitist group in that the knowledge base here is the 1% of the 1%.

 

[FrantzM]

@FrantzM why do you need the miniDSP 2x HD if you also have the Denon AVR-X3700?
The Denon has 2x sub out and with Audyssy you can apply room correction.

I'm curious because I have a Denon AVC-X3700h on order.

Hi

You please GET the Denon. It is worth it.
The miniDSP is extraordinarly flexible for bass (and full range) purposes. You can combine the 2-subs with it. MAssage them have a smooth, in-room bass response with inordinately flexible crossover slopes and level. It performs crossover and EQ and can accept input from REW for biquads corrections. In other words. This little box provides a lot of bang for the buck. You can grow with it, you will learn a lot from it.
One of the best way to use it is to measure and use the miniDSP to achieve the smoothest response from 10 to 250 Hz within your main listening spatial volume. Then you present this "subwoofer", in fact a combination of both or more subwoofers to one of the sub input of the Denon for final Audyssey setup. Aside from very expensive Pre/Pro, AVR do not have such fine grained configurators. the minDSP 2x4 does.
There are two models the miniDSP 2x4 at around $125 ... and the 2x4 HD at ~$250. The 2 x 4 model' maximum output is .9 Volt which may not be enough for some amp or subwoofers... Its processor is not as powerful as that of the 2 x4 HD which can push 2 Volts no issue and is powerful enough to run Dirac it become then a DDRC-24, will cost you around $500 (250 + the Dirac add-on) then but is worth it for full range Room Correction with Dirac. IMHO ...

The Denon X-3700 is a seriously built receiver capable of most of the HT codecs available and its performance is very good. It was tested here by Amir. I deemed transparent for anything you or anyone would throw at it.

I will try to write something on AVR. We all have lamented their "poor" performance as compared to DAC and amplifers combo with SINAD in the 100 dB and more. I am coming to term with a system based on a Denon X-3400H and LSR-308. SINAD must be in the low 80 dB (not measured) and I can't fault. It is dawning on me that the race to higher SINAD however intellectually satisfying it may be, is not the end of it all. I am not sure, those in the know will correct me, that we can hear the differences between 80 dB and 100 dB SINAD. A system that clear 75 dB of SINAD is in my current book, transparent , no adverb needed . It won't clear CD dynamic range . I am not sure there exist a recorded CD with 70 dB of Dynamic Range. I also believe 80 dB of dynamic range is unattainable in a home setting... Subject for a debate for another thread/time...

Peace.

 

[FrantzM]

The Hegel is a great integrated amplifier and will last you years, don’t have buyers remorse! Since it doesn’t have any room correction you should get a sub that does. Lastly just remember people have been enjoying music forever with far lower level equipment than you and this is a bit of an elitist group in that the knowledge base here is the 1% of the 1%.

No buyer remorse. The Hegel can/should remain in your system.
For the record, giving what bass linearity brings to a system> I would not leave DSP/Crossover and EQ functions to the subwoofers.. Most of them only have crude controls. It's better than nothing but inadequate, compared to the fine-grained and sophistication of an external unit such the miniDSP 2x4 HD

Your $2800 budget provides everything you need for a superlative system:
Hegel stays
LS Meta stay
Pair of SVS SB-1000 Pro ..... $1000
miniDSP 2 x4 HD with the miniDSP Umik-1 for .............................. $350 via Amazon Prime

$1350
Done.
You're then left with $1450 for whatever ...

Peace

 

[Ultrasonic]

I'd say don't run before you can walk. Don't attempt 2 subs before you've attempted 1.

My feeling too. Far too many here jump to two or more subwoofer options IMHO. The main arguments for using a subwoofer apply to just using one. There are absolutely potential advantages to using more but this ramps up the complexity whilst simply getting one sub properly integrated with something like a 2x4 HD is a far from trivial task for the average consumer.

 

[abdo123]

My feeling too. Far too many here jump to two or more subwoofer options IMHO. The main arguments for using a subwoofer apply to just using one. There are absolutely potential advantages to using more but this ramps up the complexity whilst simply getting one sub properly integrated with something like a 2x4 HD is a far from trivial task for the average consumer.

there is no extra work necessary when integrating one subwoofer or 50 subwoofers as long as you have the routing matrix / outputs necessary.

 

[FrantzM]

My feeling too. Far too many here jump to two or more subwoofer options IMHO. The main arguments for using a subwoofer apply to just using one. There are absolutely potential advantages to using more but this ramps up the complexity whilst simply getting one sub properly integrated with something like a 2x4 HD is a far from trivial task for the average consumer.

Agreeing.. belatedly

Still ...

 

[Ultrasonic]

there is no extra work necessary when integrating one subwoofer or 50 subwoofers as long as you have the routing matrix / outputs necessary.

That's not true. At a minimum you're doubling the work as you have two subs to find good positions for and to set the optimal time delays for. Arguably finding the optimal arrangement for two is more complex too, and the more speakers you have overlapping at the crossover point the more complex it becomes to choose how to do this optimally.

I'd also argue there is more scope for getting things wrong with two or more subs.

I'm partly coming at this from experience across multiple forums of trying to help people get one sub optimally set up. I think it's easy for those familiar with interpreting acoustic measurements to underestimate the complexity of this for the average consumer.

 

[abdo123]

to find good positions for

set the optimal time delays for.

Yeah, I follow the Tom Geddes school of thought which says that these two things are not necessary at all, he did his PhD on sub-bass reproduction 30 years ago so he probably knows what he's doing.

The subwoofers should be placed as randomly as possible in the room and the only thing that needs optimal delay is the final 'subwoofer' which is the natural summation of all the subwoofers in the room and that is just to ensure that the crossover region is in-phase. Which means it's pretty much the same whether it's one subwoofer, or 20 subwoofers.

 

[abdo123]

Does the Hegel has high-pass filters for the speakers?

otherwise i would really buy a subwoofer that does has a high-pass filter.

 

[KMO]

The Hegel doesn't have a mechanism to loop back in a high-passed signal from a sub, as far as I can tell. No tape loop monitor or whatever.

 

[Ultrasonic]

Yeah, I follow the Tom Geddes school of thought which says that these two things are not necessary at all, he did his PhD on sub-bass reproduction 30 years ago so he probably knows what he's doing.

The subwoofers should be placed as randomly as possible in the room and the only thing that needs optimal delay is the final 'subwoofer' which is the natural summation of all the subwoofers in the room and that is just to ensure that the crossover region is in-phase. Which means it's pretty much the same whether it's one subwoofer, or 20 subwoofers.

I think there is an important distinction between two subwoofers and lots of subwoofers. Consider if someone had two subwoofers that were perfectly out of phase at the listening position. I would suggest better results could be achieved by switching one sub off. Wouldn't you? If not it's like arguing that running full-range speakers with the bass out of phase between the two wouldn't be detrimental.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

And what about towers? A pair of good towers with your hegel and you done..

 

[FrantzM]

Yeah, I follow the Tom Geddes school of thought which says that these two things are not necessary at all, he did his PhD on sub-bass reproduction 30 years ago so he probably knows what he's doing.

The subwoofers should be placed as randomly as possible in the room and the only thing that needs optimal delay is the final 'subwoofer' which is the natural summation of all the subwoofers in the room and that is just to ensure that the crossover region is in-phase. Which means it's pretty much the same whether it's one subwoofer, or 20 subwoofers.

Correction : Earl not Tom

I tend to agree with that too. We may need to come back to this but that phase issue in the bass could be a ... non-issue.. Point for another discussion. In the low bass the room is minimum-phase .. In simple terms: if you get a smooth FR .. It is mostly solved; behavior in music is similar to steady-tone.. In the low bass .
On this
Time to fire REW and try to "Geddes" my current room ... Again