I posted this short review on another site. Thought some may find it of
Interest here.
The Kefs r a 'growlin good spkr'... Open, dynamic, detailed, & fun! Mine have approx. 50hrs on 'em & have opened up &
smoothed out considerably. Attack & definition is great w/no hint of 'metalic' drivers that was present during the initial run in. Quick &
rhythmic they convey the 'excitement' contained in the performance. Forever, by Corea, Clark & White is awash in the musicianship that
is second to none. Chic's piano is fantastic & Jean Luc's violin visceral & alive. Instruments r fully & tonally represented w/attack & decay while
maintaining micro detail. Chaka Khan's vocal reproduction on 'I Love You Porgy', is exciting & oh so goooooood! The LS50s
easily unravel complex passages while throwing a wide, deep, dense & detailed soundstage.
I've had the Kefs matched up w/a Yamaha A-S2000 fed via a Modwright Transporter w/Audio Magic Clairvoyant liquid interconnect & spkr. cables in a great room 25' x 30' x 16'. The Transporter runs balanced into the Yamaha or single ended into a custom dual mono Velvet Touch preamp w/RK-37 tubes & Dueland Cast capacitors into the Yamaha pre-amp ins.
The Kefs also matched up very nicely w/a Unison Research SR-1, a really fine combination that allowed each to demonstrate a musical finesse & rightness in an emotionally & musically satisfying manner. In that case the Kefs & Unison were driven by a modded Pioneer PD-65, the 'turntable' cd player, & the same Audio Magic Clairvoyant cables. The same partnered components drove the PrimaLuna Prolouge II w/big bold tones & nice detail resolution, but without the speed of the more powerful solid state combinations. This via the 8ohm outs as I tried the 4ohm but felt a 'little hardness' in the presentation. The Kefs easily reveal what they r being fed; give 'em better upstream & they respond eagerly.
I've a feeling, though haven't verified yet, that the LS50's would be the 'cats meow' in telling differences when say, tube rolling the front end pre
on the SR-1 ecc82/12ax7s for just the right amount of top end 'sparkle'.
In a large room, the spacious, powerful, evenhanded nature of the Yamaha is a GFM (great fun match)! The combination may not 'go the lowest' i've had in room, but does many things better than I've heard 'in room' before. Percussive attack & decay, coherence top to bottom, agility & resolution, spacious & 'well sorted', vocal 'sumptuousness & presence', treble integration w/surprisingly deep, tight & well articulated bass. A fuller robustness compared to say, the ProAc Response 1SC, which I have in house. The treble has opened up beautifully detailed & not at all recessed as some have noted. It's performance vs price ratio seems really high. I've as yet, not been tempted to pair them w/my JBL Pro slot super tweeters, they just seem so complete & 'right' on their own. The same goes for a sub, I'll leave that for others to explore as I have none in house.
Kef deserves to be applauded for bringing such high tech integration in at such affordable pricing. Match & pick one of the great many dacs currently afforded; cable match to taste; dedicate a line, or two; condition or not; & you can end up w/a really nice, well balanced, & long serving audio system. The Kef LS50s r the type of product that restore balance & perspective by delivering high performance/high value transducers that enables one
to re-imagine assumptions one may have formulated as to how & what is 'required' to deliver sustained satisfaction in high-end audio performance.
The LS50s are 'Zenish'; little speakers w/the spiritual moves of an aikido master. They can go all downbeat w/Steve Gold for Saturday morning Yoga Sessions w/aplomb, then dart off, all dressed up to the 9's Saturday night w/Ritenour's Rhythm Sessions, demonstrating speed & leading edge attack w/a composed core, balancing tone, texture & finish that fleshes out the performance. Dave Alvin's crunching Stratocaster in Boss of the Blues made me wish I had a 'Big Joe Turner' collection to go rummage thru. You get the idea.
The LS50s thou physically small, possess the ability to make ones musical world larger by putting one closer to the original artist intent, the musical message, the muse in the music. They communicate emotional intent as well as intellectual content, they demonstrate design pretext & engineering context & avoid design fallacy. They appeal in equal measure to both heart & head. They r a third, & unique thing, a little speaker w/big performance.
Definitely worth checking out...
