T and Rayma, I agree that speaker break-in can be very important, even with expensive speakers. I had a problem with the tweeters in the Sasha speakers that Dave Wilson gave me a few years ago. They were very irritating, compared to my Met 7's (for example, that don't have any highs) and I even complained to Dave Wilson (so much about accepting free speakers without criticism) about it. I thought it would last forever, so I got a pair of super tweeters, tube driven and I hoped to add a inductor in series with the main tweeter to roll it off as necessary. Not too surprisingly, the tweeters (broke in) and now they are not annoying. It just took a hundred hours or less. Now, I rarely use my super tweeters, and have given up on the added inductor. With the BEST sources the Sashas can sound wonderful, (at least enough to me).
T, yes, it would appear that you have fallen for ad and reviewer hype. I am always suspicious of products that 'do too much' being very successful to people who actually know what things actually sound like, like you.
T, yes, it would appear that you have fallen for ad and reviewer hype. I am always suspicious of products that 'do too much' being very successful to people who actually know what things actually sound like, like you.
I’d trashed a driver in some new headphones a few years ago by turning up the volume. They didn’t produce the decibels that I thought they should, turned out they were just new and hadn’t loosened up yet. I allowed the next pair to play for some time before trying that again.
I had no idea the difference would be that pronounced.
I had no idea the difference would be that pronounced.
Thanks for the compliment.
May-i add some comments ?
I have read several times that, with age, we do not like high frequencies as in our young age. An effect of the losses of our hearing ?
When I was young, i was always trying to add some extreme trebles to the cymbals and female voices in my mixs. trying to add sparkling. In the same time, i was always unsatisfied by the result, admiring the way they were sounding in records like "take five" of Dave Brubeck, without being able to get this presence.
Now I know better: if you want to add something to them, it is...basses to add size and a large membrane mic to catch the impact ! they are not so bright, so "hifi" in real life. ;-)
My big system do not have any tweeter. The horn is passively corrected to be as flat as possible between 600 and 15.000Hz, where it cut naturally. I tried too to add an ultrasonic tweeter: catastrophic !!!! (Like you)
In fact, I think we don't need anything upper: there is mainly distortion components. Micro dynamic is not here. (But i'm not young anymore, despite all my attempts, so cannot speak for younger ;-)
An other think. I remember those Audax aluminium tweeters, used by Leon (Elipson) in the 60-70 years. They were flat up to 40KHz. Was young at this time, but always found them awful, "irritating", as you said. As I feel those KEF LS50.
Last edited:
Tournesol,
They sound best when played at comfortable listening levels - They do not excel at low listening volumes - but then I know very, very few speakers where this is the case (in the old days, you had a loudness control and bass/treble which were particularly useful at low listening volumes).
They are compact speakers so they are better suited to small rooms and some rear wall reinforcement can help but a sub-bass works wonders in a larger room which is what I have done and I understand many other owners.
You may need to let them settle a bit for treble to sort itself out. I would have said the treble is particularly good on the LS50's - not aggressive at all and the imaging is outstanding. That said, mine are not the powered version, and I am not a believer in class D. These are not efficient speakers either - about 85 dB IIRC.
Anyway, hope you grow to like them . . . they are British, you are French, sometimes hard to see eye to eye
Last edited:
The port on the back has 3 options: empty (the most bass, for a larger room); a foam ring insert (for an average room); the foam ring insert with a center insert (the least bass, for a small room). Do you have the inserts installed? If so, I'd remove both of them. However, this speaker is not intended to produce deep bass.
Not in this case.
This is not something that KEF says, but from personal experience.
Could be. However, source and listener effects can be tricky to fully disentangle. Doesn't have to be all one or the other.
Impossible I'd say
And regards long term auditory memory, I wonder how long it is. I listened to an album I hadn't heard in a while the other day, and it sounded quite different to how I remember it, and I know it well. So much of this subjective talk is useless
Last edited:
Max volume, only "class A line driver" in audio path, gain 3.7, rails +-12.6V
frequency sweep Max volume, input 2Vrms
FFT fundamental 1kHz, 1V rms input, 100kOhm load It is clear that in THD+N measurements hum dominates
FFT fundamental 1kHz, 1Vrms input, 600 Ohm load, gain 2.7
FFT fundamental 1kHz, 500mVrms input, 600 Ohm load, gain 2.7, output current 3mA peak (looks like a limit for "class A line driver")
FFT fundamental 10kHz, 1V rms input, 600 Ohm load
FFT 10kHz fundamental, 100kOhm load, 1V rms input
- Status
- Not open for further replies.