KEF LS50 Need Help

Yes there IS a substitute to a "well designed full range speaker"...adding well designed sub to your KEFs! After all, a "full range" speaker is a speaker with a built in sub of some sort, powered or otherwise. An advantage I've found with my REL is that I can turn it up or down easily to instantly compensate for bass heavy or bass light music. A good thing since I don't use room correction gizmos and my preamp has no tone controls. A main speaker that cleanly goes down to 25hz would be too big and expensive for my listening space and I really like the sound of small baffle speakers anyway (Silverline Preludes currently). If you run a sub being careful of its level and have it take over right around the low frequency cutoff point of the mains, it can be a seamless musical addition that that you will never want to do without.

12-20-13: Audioconnection
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The highest performance loudspeaker designs today are sophisticated multi enclosures with drivers placed in their own ideal structure(s). ….

The LS50 provides a high resolution point source in a vibration-free cabinet. It is optimized for ideal dispersion, and is rated by Stereophile as Class A sound from about 70 Hz on up.

If you add a quality powered subwoofer (or two) in an inert cabinet, aren't you then creating a full-range system based on the principle you just mentioned--multiple enclosures with drivers placed in their own ideal structures?

i will say that these speakers are most impressive with good source material. my only hesitation in at least trying the sub option is the harshness of the highs, at times, as a sub will not have an impact on that. break-in may soften the highs, but, it will have to happen before the return date comes... i also get the impression that subs can be hard to match to speakers and rooms. boomy bass would not be cool. i think my nature makes it hard for me run my stereo system when not listening just to break in the speakers. in my mind i am wearing the other components. probably foolish thinking.

Sometimes when you are missing the lower octave (Bass), you unwittingly turn up the volume to compensate, and given that small monitor speakers such as this are putting out only the higher frequencies, it can seem like they are harsh. Get your subwoofer in the mix, and it may change everything. Now, that said, if your room or electronics are creating the harshness in the high frequencies, then that's a different problem. Also, depending on where you have them now, you may want to try moving them farther apart from each other. I find them to be pretty neutral speakers overall.

Torxx, there are all kinds of things that a good subwoofer (or pair) will do for a stereo setup that isn't intuitive. You may find that the highs seem to mellow out with a sub because the tonal balance and the pressurization of the room change.

And here's another one: If you get a sub set up correctly, the most immediate thing you'll notice isn't extra bass, it'll be … imaging! Something about getting true fundamentals in sync with what the monitors are doing that makes the imaging and soundstage "pop."

I don't get why you won't give your speakers the 100+ hours they need. If you have a 30-day eval period, that's 720 hours total. You could have had 336 hours on these speakers in 2 weeks if you'd just set up an FM tuner or put iTunes or a CD player on infinite repeat. It doesn't have to be loud, and if you want to make the sound less intrusive, wire the speakers out of phase facing each other and throw a blanket over them. I consider initial speaker break-in a "mission from God," because I can't seriously listen to, enjoy, tune, or do final placement and setup until that is largely completed first. Energy consumption under these circumstances wouldn't show up on your electric bill with most amplifiers.

And finally, I have successfully integrated several subwoofers into various systems, both in my own house (5 setups) and two more at a neighbor's house. If I want to get a really good sub integration, it may take me 1-4 hours with the help of the frequency generator warble tones on the Stereophile Test CD 2.

But it's well worth it. It's basically spending ONE Saturday morning or afternoon dialing in the crossover point, phase, and volume, playing the test tones, and playing musical tracks you're familiar with. In return, you get more realistic tonal balance, bigger dynamic range, better in-room power response, more realistic soundstage and imaging, and more musical satisfaction from hearing more of the notes, plus the room energy of the original recording.

Isn't that worth a 4-hour investment?