[ambrose1985]

does the KEF LS50 do well for nearfield listening ? 

 

[goldendarko]

  does the KEF LS50 do well for nearfield listening ? 

Yes, I used them as desktop speakers while I owned them and they functioned very well in that use.

 

[cuiter23]

  does the KEF LS50 do well for nearfield listening ? 

 
Make sure you get at least 30cm from the rear reflex port to your wall. Or else they will sound like fart cannons. 

 

[jologskyblues]

  does the KEF LS50 do well for nearfield listening ? 

Yes! They even remain full sounding and detailed even at low volume.
 

   
Make sure you get at least 30cm from the rear reflex port to your wall. Or else they will sound like fart cannons. 

 
I also encountered that bloated bass issue in my room regardless of how far or near I placed the speakers from the wall.
 
What I've done to fix that problem is to fully plug the ports on my LS50 and turned up the low-pass control of  the sealed SVS subwoofer take over the the upper bass frequencies from the LS50. The result: tight, effortless, clean bass. I did have center the sub under my desk to minimize sub localization.

 

[Blueshound24]

 

  does the KEF LS50 do well for nearfield listening ? 

Yes! They even remain full sounding and detailed even at low volume.
 

   
Make sure you get at least 30cm from the rear reflex port to your wall. Or else they will sound like fart cannons. 

 
I also encountered that bloated bass issue in my room regardless of how far or near I placed the speakers from the wall.
 
What I've done to fix that problem is to fully plug the ports on my LS50 and turned up the low-pass control of  the sealed SVS subwoofer take over the the upper bass frequencies from the LS50. The result: tight, effortless, clean bass. I did have center the sub under my desk to minimize sub localization.

Which SVS sub are you using with your LS50's, and do you feel it integrates well with them? I may have to dig our my LS50 plugs and give em a try again. I have a couple of subs under my desktop but would like to upgrade them at some point.

 

[jologskyblues]

  Which SVS sub are you using with your LS50's, and do you feel it integrates well with them? I may have to dig our my LS50 plugs and give em a try again. I have a couple of subs under my desktop but would like to upgrade them at some point.

I'm using an older SVS sb12-nsd. Yes, it integrates well but it took a lot of tweaking the subwoofer settings over time to get it to the point where I'm happy with the results.

 

[daerron]

Would definitely recommend dual subs like the SVS model suggested and then to plug the ports using the foam supplied as it will clean up the mid bands due to putting less strain on them to produce the bass frequencies. I've sold my two pairs of LS50s and are now only running the KEF R500s with a Velodyne sub crossed over at 40Hz. Do miss some of the extra liveliness of the LS50s mids and better coherency, but the R500s have killer bass, especially with the NuPrime IDA-16 (which I think would be a killer amp for the LS50s as well).

 

[styler]

i have the LS50s pair with a parasound halo integrated. i think its a pretty stunning combo and now know that the LS50s do indeed like power. compared to my creek evo amp the parasound is much better. parasound shines with midrange and bass. my room is 15x12 and do not feel the need for a sub. another area this combo shines is in low volume listening - no lack of detail at falling asleep levels. this amp bests the creek by a long shot. more vibrant, better detail, bigger soundstage and more authoritative bass. the LS50s are a remarkable little speaker.

 

[3000]

Does anyone have the LS50's, in use with an Auralic Vega (or ARK MX+) and/or Auralic Taurus MK2? I'm wondering whether that would be too bright..

 

[goldendarko]

Does anyone have the LS50's, in use with an Auralic Vega (or ARK MX+) and/or Auralic Taurus MK2? I'm wondering whether that would be too bright..

I used it with the Vega and Schiit Ragnarok amp. Definitely wasn't too bright for me

 

[3000]

I used it with the Vega and Schiit Ragnarok amp. Definitely wasn't too bright for me

Thanks! I guess it's time for me to inform myself what amp will fit my system with Kef LS50 

 

 

[musicman2006]

I got a fantastic deal on a new pair of LS50's for $1,000 ! I went from using an Emotiva XPA200 to using the Ragnarok and the Ragnarok sounds much better. I say that because each general frequency band seems to better amplified together more evenly. Also I noticed that with the Ragnarok the bass was still taught and with impact, even at low volume while not changing to the balance in relation to the highs and mids. The bass on the Emotiva was nice but not as resolute. Basically, bass and mid-bass are where I found the majority of improvements between amps. 
 
On a separate note, has anyone done any mods to their LS50 ? Iv'e made some simple/sensible adjustments inside the cabinet. 

 

[styler]

Mods in cabinet? How?

 

[styler]

The ls50 is not a bright speaker. It MIGHT be a tad forward with some emphasis on midrange but it doesn't s definitely not bright.

 

[musicman2006]

If you're willing to take off the rubber caps glued on to the back, the speakers are rather easy to open up. The front baffle is a composite material that is still resonant more so than the heavy cabinet. Place your hand on the baffle and then the cabinet and you can confirm this. What I did was just an extension of KEF's own idea to use Constrained layer damping. I used Dynamat which is widely used to reduce the same effect on cars for audio application. I placed two layers of Dynamat (which is easily removable if you change your mind) on the inside of the baffle as well as a few strips along the side walls inside the wood cabinet. The sound was much clearer including bass frequencies. My goal was just to make these as accurate as possible by reducing vibrations and it worked. Also moving one of the foam pieces from blocking the port on the inside also helped with air flow.
 
Minor improvements also came from replacing the ceramic resistors with 1% resistors along with replacing the aluminum wiring with good copper wiring. I was NOT trying to change the crossover specs. The resistors and wiring specifically helped improve sound stage as well as slightly taming some of that "metallic sound" some people have mentioned but that can be a personal preference. I highly recommend using the additional constrained layer damping if nothing else. It's the easiest thing that can be done to improve any speaker. I also have plenty of pics if anyone is interested.
 
Interesting note, KEF has placed Clarity caps in their LS50 xover.