[Sonic Defender]

the general consensus and believe me I have tried subs is that if you like audiophile sound a sub is really difficult to integrate with the LS50W and 99% of the time just sounds overbearing or simply awful....depends a lot on music, room acoustics etc of course so ymmd

Makes sense, but I would suspect that if one equalized the LS50W to trim back what I will assume without seeing any frequency response graphs is somewhat overcooked mid-bass, some of the overbearing bass would be reduced. I find the R300 also has a little of that, but to this point I haven't bothered using EQ as it is a minor issue. So if the LS50W is equalized that would allow some sub bass to be added, and likely it is needed. I think all in one driver designs may suffer a little from the signature being tuned to sound very full in order to compensate for the normal rolled off low and sub bass.

If that is the case trimming back the bass on the speakers is a good thing, then gently blending in some sub bass via a sub or subs. Based on experience and research frequently people turn their subs up too loud and that of course muddies and causes the sound to become unbalanced. You should barely hear a sub, it should more be perceived as a overall sound pressure increase, but I suspect you know this so sorry for perhaps stating the obvious.

 

[bearFNF]

We added a sub to one of our setups with the LS50W in a large open room and ut made a significant difference. The other setup in a smaller more cluttered area the sub was not really needed. So like others have said, it depends on the application. YMMV

 

[Sonic Defender]

We added a sub to one of our setups with the LS50W in a large open room and ut made a significant difference. The other setup in a smaller more cluttered area the sub was not really needed. So like others have said, it depends on the application. YMMV

It can't be the sub bass acting as clutter, unless people crank up the volume on the sub which is the users issue. The LS50W will produce no meaningful sub bass at all, but the clutter is the mid-bass it produces. Adding the sub bass properly could not cause any clutter. The clutter was solely the domain of the LS50W in the room and if it was trimmed back by EQ the addition of sub bass (at appropriate levels) could only improve the sound, that is absolutely guaranteed.

 

[bearFNF]

It can't be the sub bass acting as clutter, unless people crank up the volume on the sub which is the users issue. The LS50W will produce no meaningful sub bass at all, but the clutter is the mid-bass it produces. Adding the sub bass properly could not cause any clutter. The clutter was solely the domain of the LS50W in the room and if it was trimmed back by EQ the addition of sub bass (at appropriate levels) could only improve the sound, that is absolutely guaranteed.

What I meant by "cluttered" was chairs, couches, shelves, exercise bike, sliding glass doors, etc. The sub was not needed regardless of what it did to the sound...no amount of tuning was going to fix the room and it was not worth the effort, in this case.

 

[Sonic Defender]

What I meant by "cluttered" was chairs, couches, shelves, exercise bike, sliding glass doors, etc. The sub was not needed regardless of what it did to the sound...no amount of tuning was going to fix the room and it was not worth the effort, in this case.

Fair enough, cheers.

 

[dhananjay]

I have added a SVSound SB3000 sub to my LS50W and I am very happy with the improvement the sub makes in the system. IMO, a sub is an essential add-on for the LS50W and the LSX too. I do love music that extends deep into the bass region such as jazz featuring a standup bass and electronica ambient music. I have taken time to carefully calibrate the sub so that it does not overpower the system. The SB3000 is a very musical sub and good match for the LS50W.

what is your room size? ( for SB 3000 with LS50W).
This weekend i am going to audition for SB2000. The shop nearby don't have SB3000 now.

 

[coolmilo]

what is your room size? ( for SB 3000 with LS50W).
This weekend i am going to audition for SB2000. The shop nearby don't have SB3000 now.

So, my room is a bedroom converted into an office/media room. It is only 10 ft x 8 ft. The sb2000 would be fine for my room. I went for the sb3000 for the features, including building profiles using my phone. I bought directly from svsound because of their upgrade policy (one year upgrade and receive full cost for your trade in) and free in home trial. I believe there are more benefits buying direct.

 

[jologskyblues]

For the past year, I've been a bit bothered that my LS50W sounded like it lacks stereo coherency in near-field. Well, I tried to disable phase-correction and lo and behold, left and right now sounds seamlessly connected with that nice natural phantom center. The listening sweet spot has noticeably widened so I guess, phase-correction may actually be counterproductive in a near-field listening setup.

 

[SQ13]

just chance in this thread, am using ken kreisel sub with the 50s

 

[greenkiwi]

For anyone waiting to get some LS50 Wireless, they are currently on sale for $1799.

 

[thegurge]

I've been trying to integrate a SVS SB-2000 with my LS50Ws. First time I've ever had a sub so it's all new for me and I'm struggling to get it right. I think I've found a roughly decent sweet spot, but yeah the struggle is real.

 

[jologskyblues]

I just found out that there's a new firmware update for the LS50W.

19-Nov-2019 Wi-Fi v3.0.0, MCU v4.1.0

• Fixed subwoofer volume issue
• Fixed IR control issue on speaker volume
• Wi-Fi always accessible from all sources
• Support wake-up speaker by KEF Control app, Spotify Connect and DLNA (only applicable for speaker serial number after LS50W13074K24L/R2G)
• Various improvement and bug fixes

The change log says that the issue with the subwoofer volume not being saved has been fixed. Finally, after over two years of having this problem, I guess enough people sent emails about it for KEF to be compelled to fix it. They also fixed the annoyingly sluggish response of the remote control volume settings.

 

[Chikolad]

I just found out that there's a new firmware update for the LS50W.



The change log says that the issue with the subwoofer volume not being saved has been fixed. Finally, after over two years of having this problem, I guess enough people sent emails about it for KEF to be compelled to fix it. They also fixed the annoyingly sluggish response of the remote control volume settings.

Cool!

 

[peterinvan]

I just found out that there's a new firmware update for the LS50W.



The change log says that the issue with the subwoofer volume not being saved has been fixed. Finally, after over two years of having this problem, I guess enough people sent emails about it for KEF to be compelled to fix it. They also fixed the annoyingly sluggish response of the remote control volume settings.

I had no trouble with the last update, however with this one I had trouble during the update. My set up:

PC (Win7) to USB to LS50W.
Both PC and LS50W are hard wired to my local net (and Internet).​

Downloaded the update, and ran it. It does fine till step 5 (rebooting). Got to 98% and stalled. After a time out, a dialogue box said "Network connection problems".
I followed the requests to reboot the Modem; tried twice to no avail. Stepped through the reboot request again, and it timed out again.
Turned off the Speakers. Powered up again, and the speakers now work OK. The remote response seems to be better, so I assume the update was successful.

 

[Chikolad]

I had no trouble with the last update, however with this one I had trouble during the update. My set up:

PC (Win7) to USB to LS50W.
Both PC and LS50W are hard wired to my local net (and Internet).​

Downloaded the update, and ran it. It does fine till step 5 (rebooting). Got to 98% and stalled. After a time out, a dialogue box said "Network connection problems".
I followed the requests to reboot the Modem; tried twice to no avail. Stepped through the reboot request again, and it timed out again.
Turned off the Speakers. Powered up again, and the speakers now work OK. The remote response seems to be better, so I assume the update was successful.

Is step 5 the final one or is it before updating the R/L speakers separately?
There is more than one update in the bundle, maybe some went through and some didn't?