KEF LS50 Mini Monitor - High Gloss Piano Black (Pair)

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Price: $1,499.99    

Product Feature

• LS50's unique technologies offer by far the cleanest, most accurate studio-grade performance of any mini monitor.
• Employs revolutionary technology developed for Blade, KEF's latest flagship loudspeaker.
• Using the very latest Uni-Q driver specifically designed for this model, LS50 radiates an extremely large listening area with remarkably fast, clean sound
• Matte black KEF logo atop a beautifully clad high gloss black speaker cabinet with 50th anniversary rose gold aluminium Uni-Q driver
• LS50 is one of the most award-winning speaker products ever released by KEF, by industry reviewers and consumers alike

Product Description

An innovative concept inspired by the legendary LS3/5a, the KEF LS50 mini monitor is designed to bring a professional studio monitor into the home.

KEF LS50 Mini Monitor - High Gloss Piano Black (Pair) Review

I got curious about these when Stereophile gave them a much coveted A rating (with the caveat of "extreme" bass extension). But A ratings are typically reserved for speakers in the (in average) $20k category. You also have to know I do own a 15 year old Accuphase + tower speaker rig worth $30k+ that I worshiped - I speak in the past because it is mostly in storage. I used to have an audio room that was large and tower speakers looked and sounded good there. But I have moved into a new place, and decided I needed something more space efficient - plus it is my conviction that good bookshelf speakers will beat towers in accuracy and staging most of the time, since they resemble that ideal audio source vanishing point more than anything else.

So I got these KEF LS50, and right out of the box... they blew my mind. I could not believe the sheer playful agility, the dynamic and tonal accuracy, and the geometric stage resolution of these things. I nearly dropped my glass of Barolo as my jaw dropped. Right away I knew I had found a life-long partner for my audiophile needs - at a fraction of what I expected to pay for it, really. This little virtuoso lifts every veil, reveals everything, without ever getting tiring (which hyper-linear monitors tend to do). The KEF LS50 is a fun exhibitionist, always musical and playful while staying *exact* - tonally and staging-wise. It reveals everything in the entire chain - from recording studio to your delivery line up. Which of course also means that the weakest links will be exposed.

You will hear what the recording engineer heard - with some additional musicality, somehow, because these are speakers, not studio monitors. What a feat by KEF.

You will also hear your audio chains' components personalities and perhaps limitations. If you like mellifluous, drippy and warm tubes and bought such an amplifier, hey, the KEF will drip with sweetness and warmth. If you got a sharp, mathematically exact solid state amplifier, the KEF will present you everything with the katana-like sharpness you expect. My current line-up is: I stream uncompressed (and often 96kHz 24bit) FLAC audio files into a Benchmark DAC-2 HGC, which then feeds to an Accuphase E-306v integrated amp via balanced inputs, and then off you go to the KEF LS50s. Cabling is good but never esoteric (I don't want cables to introduce any "personality" into my chain, just be transparent, and find cables in the $50-$300 range do a perfect job, depending on the task). I also drive a sub (Velodyne miniVee) but keep it unobtrusively turned down, which should tell you what I think about the KEFs bass delivery. It absolutely suffices most of the time, I find, the MiniVee just barely kicks in when absolutely needed. Which is mostly for movie FX, music rarely requires additional bass extension unless you want to hear a giant kodo drum at life-like volume levels (which your neighbors are bound to report to the police unless you live in a medieval castle). My priority is music - I just happen to also use the system for the entertainment system, but it is music I optimize for. I listen to jazz and classical (the only music types I store as FLACs); and also R&B and popular (and for that MP3 is fine by me). There are certain recordings I have used as a reference for many years - and the KEF have upped the ante. A great complement I have to pay to the KEF is that I didn't have to adjust to the new sound - it is pure, clear, approachable and immediately musical. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman never sounded better, sorry, I have to go listen to "My one and only love" again...

While the Accuphase E-306v does pack a punch (albeit very musically and accurately), I would like to counter rumors on the Internet that claim these speakers are inefficient and hard to drive. I don't believe so. A friend of mine is sick right now, but truly wanted to hear them, so I took the KEF to his house and connected them to his Qinpu A-6000 (an incredible piece of gear at the price, by the way... incredible at 10x the price too), And the KEF sounded amazing. I haven't checked, but the Qinpu only puts out like 10-20W (albeit of great quality). And we were able to listen to amazing music at levels that would drown out the conversation at his place, and I brought some of my own tracks over, and I cringed a little when I thought I liked an old Coltrane-Hartmann tune a bit better through his setup than mine. Maybe it was the company and glass of Syrah. :-) Which is just to say - I don't think the KEF thirst for a lot of power unless you really want to drive them very-very loudly, in which case you prolly ought to worry about distortion and might as well get yourself a big honking set of tower speakers.

Since these speakers are so accurate, make sure you spend the time finding the right location and toe-in to suit your typical audio seating position - please. It is always important and often neglected, but with these speakers you will do yourself a severe disservice if you don't experiment with the distance and the toe-in. For my room and seating position, preliminary results are angling them so the front of the speakers points *straight* at my listening position, I sit about 7 feet from them and they are about 6ft apart. The resulting stage is twice as wide (depending on recording. Yes, I have them on solid stands so they are at ear level.

The KEF look great too, and if you hold them and knock on them it feels like you're holding the proverbial granite brick. They only come in black - I traditionally like my speakers in white but given their merits I grant the KEFs the exception, and they are small enough to not look clumsy and overpowering. It's all about personal taste, but they appeal to me esthetically, and please my sense of tactile quality.

At first I was a bit skeptical about the raving accolades... of course the audio industry is always trying to sell us aficionados the latest disruptive technology, but really - these speakers are amazing. I am not going to put down other high end speakers, because again, we need the power of choice and everybody has different preferences. But the KEF LS50 measure splendidly in the lab, they sound absolutely sublime -providing that elusive combo of playful musicality and utter accuracy- at a price that... well, $1.5k isn't cheap by any means... but given the audio purity of this speaker it actually must rank up there as one of the audiophile deals of several decades. All I can say is... wow. I have to admit it - these are *better* speakers than the $12k tower speakers I have in storage. I will try to sell those now -and they should be quite sell-able- to someone that thinks size automatically correlates with bigger sound. The KEF prove that is not the case. I regard the LS50 as a mind-blowing bargain, price-value wise.

And now I will go listen to some more music :-D

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