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KEF LS60 - real or hoax?

Also, it's not entirely clear if it's a Upnp renderer. If so do you then need two apps, the Upnp control and the Kef app ?
 
Can you not use Ethernet or Wi-Fi?
I guess I could Airplay from my Mac to the LS60 but would prefer USB so that I can continue to use Audirvana and its parametric EQ plugins. My Mac Mini has toslink output but last time I tried toslink (which was a long time ago, before I had a DAC with a good quality USB input!) Audirvana was buggy and would often freeze during sample rate changes. I don't think a Mac can output audio from its ethernet port?

Another concern for is the LS60's volume control. I'm fine with controlling volume with an app that has + and - buttons and goes up and down in gentle steps, but a slider is far too risky with my jerky motor skills (I have cerebral palsy). I've accidentally maxed out my portable bluetooth speaker a few times which although startling doesn't pose much risk as the BT speaker doesn't go earbleedingly loud. However I did the same when Airplaying to my parent's kitchen hifi (a 50wpc Marantz MCR612 into Q Acoustics 3010s) and that WAS painful, so god knows what sort of damage I'd do to my hearing if I mistakenly maxed out the LS60s! :eek: I see the rather flimsy looking remote control supplied with the LS60 has volume buttons, so hopefully I could copy its code into my universal remote and use that instead.
 
oh that sounds exciting, - so there’s not just one new speaker, but a standmount and two floorstandsrs??

but my next speaker needs to ideally be a large stand mount, so if they’ve put three drivers in a stand mount, that would be ideal…!

Yes, a standmount and two floorstanders.

Btw, the standmount will have two drivers.
 
I guess I could Airplay from my Mac to the LS60 but would prefer USB so that I can continue to use Audirvana and its parametric EQ plugins. My Mac Mini has toslink output but last time I tried toslink (which was a long time ago, before I had a DAC with a good quality USB input!) Audirvana was buggy and would often freeze during sample rate changes. I don't think a Mac can output audio from its ethernet port?

There must be a way to play music over Wi-Fi and Ethernet from a Mac. Maybe using a Kef programme?

But one of the reasons why most digital-active speakers don't attract me is that I would have to give up on HQPlayer.
 
The White Paper for the LS60, with lots of interesting data, is here:

https://us.kef.com/pub/media/ls60-content/LS60W_WP.pdf

According to the Spinorama, directivity is extremely well controlled, well up to Genelec standards, albeit narrower than I would have liked.

Edit: The more I look at the White Paper, the more impressed I am. The compression curves are quite informative. High bass SPL below 100 Hz will require subs.

If only other manufacturers were as open with performance data….
Thanks - that White Paper looks very impressive on a quick read. I will definitely have to read it again more carefully.

On limited bass SPL - yes that's as expected and is why I am always suspicious of the real-world limits of DSP capability when applied to small bass drivers.

However in this case the added distortion control looks like it has good potential. It think it might be able to reduce level compression and its audible impact up to a SPL closer to the driver protection limit. If so the result might sound better on bass dynamics than an active loudspeaker with a higher maximum SPL but natural level compression from the bass drivers kicking in earlier. This is a product on which I would rather like to try my test material to see if it does work that way.
 
Thanks - that White Paper looks very impressive on a quick read. I will definitely have to read it again more carefully.

On limited bass SPL - yes that's as expected and is why I am always suspicious of the real-world limits of DSP capability when applied to small bass drivers.

However in this case the added distortion control looks like it has good potential. It think it might be able to reduce level compression and its audible impact up to a SPL closer to the driver protection limit. If so the result might sound better on bass dynamics than an active loudspeaker with a higher maximum SPL but natural level compression from the bass drivers kicking in earlier. This is a product on which I would rather like to try my test material to see if it does work that way.

Quantity (and size) over quality?
Research seems to indicate that our sensitivity to distortion in the bass and sub-bass is low. Of course this will be listener and music programme dependent but I would rather have proper bass reproduction instead of a crutch.
I get their point about point-sourceness but at what cost?
Tiny high-excusion (sub)woofers crossing at 390Hz sounds like a recipe for disaster, but the proof is in the pudding. Eagerly waiting to see how it measures.
 
What HiFi awarded the product 5 stars.
There were quite a lot of negative readers comments following the article yesterday.
Today, the comments section has gone.

Were they negative comments regarding actual listening Impressions or something else?!!
 
Also, it's not entirely clear if it's a Upnp renderer. If so do you then need two apps, the Upnp control and the Kef app ?

They use the same app as the LS50 Wireless II. The KEF app provides access to all of the available settings and also allows you to control playback of music from various sources, including UPnP servers, but it only works with KEF speakers. If the speakers can also be used as a generic UPnP renderer (I never thought to ask KEF or test that with the LS50 Wireless II) then it is safe to assume that a third party UPnP control point app will be required, but that seems like a somewhat rare use case when there are other more elegant options available.
 
I get What Hifi to see what’s around. Never take the reviews seriously. They are so inconsistent and tend to have faves.
 


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