[hornytoad]

Probably will sound great. It would be interesting for someone who has both a quality LS 50 set up and the wired LS 50 to write up a comparison and post it here.

I can tell you after listening to the Kef LS50 wireless for 2 weeks that it is not as good as a Schiit Yggy dac , a high quality amp like the Rogue Cronos Magnum and the passive Kef LS50's .

While the wireless model is not broken in I cannot see it surpassing the passives with high quality separates .

 

[Ashah]

I can tell you after listening to the Kef LS50 wireless for 2 weeks that it is not as good as a Schiit Yggy dac , a high quality amp like the Rogue Cronos Magnum and the passive Kef LS50's .

While the wireless model is not broken in I cannot see it surpassing the passives with high quality separates .

I tend to agree with you on this one ! although I use the Nova 150 with the LS 50 with KK cables. 

 

[hornytoad]

  I tend to agree with you on this one ! although I use the Nova 150 with the LS 50 with KK cables. 

Yeah I dont care what Darko says in Audio review, high quality separates will beat the Kefls50 wireless . 
 
Of course if you add up the damage, Yggy , Rogue and Passive Ls50's are about 6199 dollars  vs 2199! 
 
So for the money the Kef ls50 wireless is pretty damn good . I think its the dac area where it is deficient 
to other dacs. 

 

[wgb113]

I can tell you after listening to the Kef LS50 wireless for 2 weeks that it is not as good as a Schiit Yggy dac , a high quality amp like the Rogue Cronos Magnum and the passive Kef LS50's .

While the wireless model is not broken in I cannot see it surpassing the passives with high quality separates .

I tend to agree with Darko on this.  I lived with a pair of passives for close to four years, paired with a McIntosh MA6300 and Oppo HA-1.  The LS50W blows it away in every single aspect.  THIS is how KEF intended the LS50 to sound and it is absolutely unbelievable - it's like a different speaker.
 
I'm not sure ANY reasonable separates setup can match it, let alone surpass it.

 

[dogbait]

Just picked up a pair. Previously had a Devialet 120 + KEF Reference 1 setup so basically a big brother to the LS50.
 
The LS50W comes close but it's definitely no cigar as far as fidelity goes.
 
It's also shy of a pair of Devialet Phantoms but considering the aforementioned setups cost £8.5k and £3.6k respectively the LS50W punches above its weight. My only recommendation is to haggle on the price of the LS50W. I picked it up for a fair bit less than retail thanks to my local dealer offering a discount.
 
One major issue I'm having with the LS50W is its app. It seems to only see the speakers the first time during setup but any subsequent attempts to access the LS50W fail. Anyone else have this issue?

 

[wgb113]

Good mention on price - I managed about 15% off of MSRP.
 
I haven't run into any WiFi issues.  There's been some talk of making sure your WiFi signal's up to snuff and that certain channels work much better than others.

 

[dogbait]

Did you try the iOS or Android KEF app?

 

[wgb113]

iOS. So far no issues. It no doubt helps that they sit in the same room as my router.

 

[dogbait]

Thanks for the info. I've tried ethernet to the speaker, wifi, even setup an isolated network on an Airport Express and connected everything to that.
 
At a loss - guess I better try and contact KEF support again.
 
As an aside if you browse to the LS50W web page and check the HTML source it has a lot of hidden stuff. Would love it if KEF were able to integrate with Amazon's Alexa...

 

[wgb113]

Yeah, I'm hoping for Roon integration and potentially MQA.  Both have been rumored.

 

[dogbait]

Figured out my network issue. My home domain is sub.domain.com.
 
The app can't find the speaker unless the DNS search domain is blank or just domain.com. To resolve it on iOS I had to go to Settings, WiFi, the connected network, then change my Search Domain to just domain.com. I've notified KEF so hopefully we'll get a bug fix.

 

[wgb113]

Glad to see you got that worked out.

 

[Satir]

n/a

 

[tamsaiming2003]

LS50 Wireless internal DAC is PCM only. However passive LS50 for money (price has fallen with release of LS50 Wireless) is a very good set of speakers. Careful matching of amplification important to get all passive LS50's are capable of. Owned LS50's mated with Devialet 120 for oustanding sound quality (although Devialet is certainly not an affordable amp/DAC to match with $1200 LS50's). KEF smartly targeted most profitable potential buyer segment with LS50 Wired. Stick with the wired, passive LS50's and good external amplification and external DAC capable of playing all file resolutions if you have large DSD library. 

Yes, but you can play DSD files decentlyfrom LS50 Wireless using Audirvana Plus 3, for instance.

 

[tamsaiming2003]

I am going to post KEF LS50 Wireless in-depth review from a user point of view.
1. Wifi and lan cable(how to get rid of the horrible official app but make best use of it at the same time)
2. BT aptx (Spotify? Youtube?)
3. RCA (Marantz HD-CD1 with an around $120 usd made in PRC pre-amp, I tell u folks, this pre-amp blows you mind of how a $120 usd pre-amp compete with those selling $1000 usd. Solid, punchy but not bloomy bass, Rich and warm mid, Sweet treble.
a. 1950s Mullard EZ81 x2, printed as Phillip Miniwatt, square getter (with EZ80 to 6Z4 adapter)
b. 1960s Valvo E80cc x2 (fantastic substitute of ecc82), printed in red, gold pin, made by Amperex
c. 1960s Valvo ecc83 x2, made by Amperex
4. Toslink
5. PC USB(B) (Tidal MQA? Qobuz? 24 bit files? Dsd files? Name them out!)

As I am going to do the review in Cantonese, English and Mandarin, the songs that I pick up would be from three languages as well.

Here are my top favorite CDs:
1. 1：1 母版直刻CD <> 張國榮(4月1號買, 向哥哥致敬)
2. 民歌蔡琴 upm24kcd no.版
3. 酒紅色的心 日本funhouse頭版
4. Adele 21 (Japan bonus track版)
5. 邓丽君 精选20首 LPCD45 M2 第二代 no.版
6. Best of the best Woong San UHQCD
7. 情菲得意 王菲 (LPCD極品天碟1果隻......跳針+根本唔係嬌柔嗲)
8. Lalaland cd
9. 陪着我走 林億蓮 UHQCD no.版
10. Cats 2CD Made in Japan, 1st edition