KEF LS60 Wireless - Finally! a buzzword compliant wireless speaker that I would buy
- Thread starter tktran303
- Start date
I too, have many philosophical thoughts about convenience vs excellence. Remember when flat screens first came out? Oh whatever it’s thin and cool/stylish but the colours are pale and washed out! Nothing can beat the good old CRT with much higher resolution and colour accuracy.
fast forward a decade or three and CRTs are part of history.
LCDs are larger and higher resolution than ever, some have great colour and brightness rendition. The average person can’t tell the difference between OLED and LCD: they just want to biggest cheapest flat screen.
But time marches on. I’ve had an OLED since 2014 and I’m not going back.
And humans are curious dedicated and passionate people. And we have language and n ourside. Something the other animals never seemed to have. So we can communicate and collaborate. One (wo)man cannot do everything alone. So before you know it OLED has 1110 nits brightness, or LCDs have better contrast approaching OLED. Besides, people gotta have jobs.
Lest they sit idle, and unemployment rises and rises, and the populace revolt against their leaders who are not providing solutions for better standards of living. Even leaders gotta do something; like dreaming of a restoring a once great union and then reclaiming by “special military operation”
can’t we all just have universal basic income, and sit around talking about neighbour’s polyamorous love affairs? Or talk all day via wireless Internet about DIYaudio. But please be day we’ll die, and the future generation are dreaming of building or creating better things, and interacting via the Metaverse whilst being plugged into feeding and drinking tubes and exercised by nano bots.
Meanwhile climate change is here to stay and all the low energy reuse reduce recycle doesn’t change the fact that we continue to use up mother Earth’s resources. Can we stop at r reverse climate change via a technical solution(s). Or are we doomed and need to find another planet to survive/exploit?
We should stay probably stay on topic here gentleman.
fast forward a decade or three and CRTs are part of history.
LCDs are larger and higher resolution than ever, some have great colour and brightness rendition. The average person can’t tell the difference between OLED and LCD: they just want to biggest cheapest flat screen.
But time marches on. I’ve had an OLED since 2014 and I’m not going back.
And humans are curious dedicated and passionate people. And we have language and n ourside. Something the other animals never seemed to have. So we can communicate and collaborate. One (wo)man cannot do everything alone. So before you know it OLED has 1110 nits brightness, or LCDs have better contrast approaching OLED. Besides, people gotta have jobs.
Lest they sit idle, and unemployment rises and rises, and the populace revolt against their leaders who are not providing solutions for better standards of living. Even leaders gotta do something; like dreaming of a restoring a once great union and then reclaiming by “special military operation”
can’t we all just have universal basic income, and sit around talking about neighbour’s polyamorous love affairs? Or talk all day via wireless Internet about DIYaudio. But please be day we’ll die, and the future generation are dreaming of building or creating better things, and interacting via the Metaverse whilst being plugged into feeding and drinking tubes and exercised by nano bots.
Meanwhile climate change is here to stay and all the low energy reuse reduce recycle doesn’t change the fact that we continue to use up mother Earth’s resources. Can we stop at r reverse climate change via a technical solution(s). Or are we doomed and need to find another planet to survive/exploit?
We should stay probably stay on topic here gentleman.
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tktran303,
Despite being a hardcore DIY guy, the KEF LS60 Wireless has piqued my interest
; thanks for starting the thread and linking the KEF whitepaper on the LS60 - some good info there.
Looks like KEF made narrow baffle width one of the non-negotiables of the LS60 Wireless design, and came up with technical innovations to make it happen instead of having to increase the cabinet size.
The measurements provided by KEF look excellent also.
You expect to be able to check them out in a showroom this month itself or will have to wait till June?
Despite being a hardcore DIY guy, the KEF LS60 Wireless has piqued my interest
; thanks for starting the thread and linking the KEF whitepaper on the LS60 - some good info there.Looks like KEF made narrow baffle width one of the non-negotiables of the LS60 Wireless design, and came up with technical innovations to make it happen instead of having to increase the cabinet size.
The measurements provided by KEF look excellent also.
You expect to be able to check them out in a showroom this month itself or will have to wait till June?
KEF went to a lot of trouble to make an ultra slim cabinet. Not for diffraction and sound benefits. Marketing rules and this is the future. Be prepared for WAF pressure for slimmer profiles:
LS60 Wireless demonstrates the true potential of Uni-Core by pushing the compromise between cabinet dimensions and sound performance further than an other loudspeaker. Figure 7 shows how the use of a Uni-Core in this case helped shed 1.2” (30.5mm) from the baffle width compared to using back-to-back LF drivers of the same excursion. There are two basic principles behind the idea of Uni-
Core. The first is the use of a shared motor between two drivers, that is a single magnet c circuit energising the two voice coils. The second principle, the one instrumental to the depth of the driver array, is the use of a different diameter for each voice coil. By doing this and using the space between the two coils to install a mounting ring for the motor T-Yoke, the two voice coils can overlap when they move backwards and considerable depth is saved
LS60 Wireless demonstrates the true potential of Uni-Core by pushing the compromise between cabinet dimensions and sound performance further than an other loudspeaker. Figure 7 shows how the use of a Uni-Core in this case helped shed 1.2” (30.5mm) from the baffle width compared to using back-to-back LF drivers of the same excursion. There are two basic principles behind the idea of Uni-
Core. The first is the use of a shared motor between two drivers, that is a single magnet c circuit energising the two voice coils. The second principle, the one instrumental to the depth of the driver array, is the use of a different diameter for each voice coil. By doing this and using the space between the two coils to install a mounting ring for the motor T-Yoke, the two voice coils can overlap when they move backwards and considerable depth is saved
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Yeah which ever way one wants to see it. I too want speakers disappear, only good sound is needed, the smaller the better in that sense. There is problem though, we need size to get enough bass. This is key. Even smaller mainspeakers would do if there is subwoofer system to help but if the mains is all we got I don't see we can get much smaller than this. Even this one resorts to DSP reducing lows as SPL increases, every bit of sound is reaped from the form factor.
Mind you, diffraction and other sound benefits we would want no matter the size. Size needs to be big enough for nice wide bandwidth and SPL capability. This can be achieved with good or bad sound, less or more diffraction, or any other "issues". To get more SPL with same bandwidth and quality the spekaer would need to be bigger. If less bandwidth and less SPL capability is fine, or quality compromized, then smaller speaker is fine. Its all about displacement and control, both come with physical size.
Mind you, diffraction and other sound benefits we would want no matter the size. Size needs to be big enough for nice wide bandwidth and SPL capability. This can be achieved with good or bad sound, less or more diffraction, or any other "issues". To get more SPL with same bandwidth and quality the spekaer would need to be bigger. If less bandwidth and less SPL capability is fine, or quality compromized, then smaller speaker is fine. Its all about displacement and control, both come with physical size.
For guys who see WAF as a relevant factor in this hobby - just build/buy your loudspeakers the way you think they have to be to sound good.
Then let your wife incorporate it in a living room design - if she sees herself as an interior design aficionado. If it doesn't look good enough in the end, then she's not much of an expert ay ???
DIY could use low profile woofers to allow an even slimmer 4.5" frontal profile for good diffraction
Parts Express LW150-4 6" Low Profile Woofer 4 Ohms Depth 1.4"
The DIY slim active speaker design can then use wired digital active feed with Cat6 to keep Jean-paul happy, a Pi for the DSP/XO to Miros AD1862 for the R2R fans with a tube output stage on the mids for the tube dudes, then Class A for the tweeter and mid with the rear speaker panel a heat sink for Papa guys and Class D for the woofers for the modern mob with a down firing port aka XRX.
Everyone happy now?
Parts Express LW150-4 6" Low Profile Woofer 4 Ohms Depth 1.4"
The DIY slim active speaker design can then use wired digital active feed with Cat6 to keep Jean-paul happy, a Pi for the DSP/XO to Miros AD1862 for the R2R fans with a tube output stage on the mids for the tube dudes, then Class A for the tweeter and mid with the rear speaker panel a heat sink for Papa guys and Class D for the woofers for the modern mob with a down firing port aka XRX.
Everyone happy now?
Id suggest the KEF marketing researchers would say your totally wrong about that. The sale numbers of this KEF will be the judge. They are not cheap but I suspect they will sell in good number. Good looks and adequate sound = $.
Diffraction is relative to wavelength, size of the baffle and the driver, baffle can be 15" if there is 15" driver on it. It would have similar amount of diffraction as 4" driver on 4" baffle, only at different frequency.
Talk about custom drivers, Unicore dual different diameter voicecoils on shared mono-motor and 1 frame. Totally unobtanium. But flat pancake woofers like that shown above can also fill this role without being unobtanium and removable and replaceable individually.
How is a unicore driver mounted in a cabinet?
The scale photo above shows how small this speaker is and personally, I find it too small looking. It looks too much like a toy and there is going to be a hard time for some people to justify $7k for something visually that looks too small. WAF acceptance taken too the extreme but I think there are other aspects - color and finish that are easier to change to get acceptance.
How is a unicore driver mounted in a cabinet?
The scale photo above shows how small this speaker is and personally, I find it too small looking. It looks too much like a toy and there is going to be a hard time for some people to justify $7k for something visually that looks too small. WAF acceptance taken too the extreme but I think there are other aspects - color and finish that are easier to change to get acceptance.
If you look at active loudspeakers that measure at the same level or better than Kef LS60 and can play at volume over 105dB/1m, there are very few. Genelec 8361A, Kii3, D&D 8C and Neumann KH420. Cheapest of the bunch is KH420 at a price of 8.000 euros and it's quite foul looking. None of the mentioned is a floorstanding loudspeaker. None of them has as much inputs and outputs nor do they posses as much functionality features as LS60.
Neumann KH420 - 8.000
D&D 8C - 10.000
Genelec 8361 - 10.000
KiiThree - 14.000
Yet, they exist.
Here is the distortion measurement of LS60 at low frequencies compared to other four mentioned loudspeakers:
LS60 -yet to be confirmed by a third party measurements
KH420
D&D 8C
Genelec 8361
Neumann KH420 - 8.000
D&D 8C - 10.000
Genelec 8361 - 10.000
KiiThree - 14.000
Yet, they exist.
Here is the distortion measurement of LS60 at low frequencies compared to other four mentioned loudspeakers:
LS60 -yet to be confirmed by a third party measurements
KH420
D&D 8C
Genelec 8361
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