KEF LS50 Wireless II Powered Wireless Speakers

Over rated and over priced

Connection issues with WiFi, MUST CONNECT VIA ETHERNET CABLE… it’s a better signal anyway …

So I connected my router direct wire to the Kef.. connected the Kef slave speaker via the supplied interconnect cable.. then and only then did I get a signal, and a good signal at that … I have them on solid stands, 7 ft apart 10 inches from the back wall, no side walls are even close. Rather large room … so…. At $3,000 ( I got a discounted $2,000 price) … I am not impressed at all with the sound quality FOR THE AMOUNT OF MONEY, Granted they sound good … but DEFINITELY NOT $3,000 good! I have a pair of $500 Edifier S1000DB s that EASILY give these a run for the money.

I have some very high end audio equipment, My same price point $2,500 Audio Monitor Gold absolutely blow these kefs out of the water no contest .. the Kef sounds like a Dixie cup compared to the Audio Monitors

So for $3k you get a streaming set of speakers that ultimately should be priced around $1,000 tops IMHO

Well rounded and actually simple to setup

I don’t buy it again

Irresponsible product company

wow

Just wow. went from a 15k wired system to this after a move. Very happy for the price. you want the matching subwoofer for full sound, but Primus to Norah Jones still rocks the house even without it. Great sound, and they fit on my old lead shot filled Celestion 100 stands. Customer service answered live in 1 minute to answer my questions. Thank you Kef

Trent

July 26, 2024

Insane sound quality and love the KEF app

I know this is overkill for the desk but I spend so many hours here I wanted the best. It came down to these KEF Wireless 2 speakers or a pair of Genelec speaker monitors. I wasn’t sure if the KEF would perform well in a near-field application but they image great and are not fatiguing.

They are a great value for the money and connectivity is handled through the master speaker on one side. The KEF app can control our Tidal and Qubus music through the LS50 and our LS60 speakers in the living room.

We use Roon to manage all of our music and it drives the KEF and Sonos speakers with ease. The iPad M4 allows us to easily access lossless music through the house and we like it better than Sonos. What great speakers!!!!

Absolutely stunning sound quality

I've owned a small recording studio and so I'm familiar with great sound quality using near field studio monitors. I bought these plus the matching stands for our living room on the basis of generally excellent reviews. I was skeptical about the amount of bass that the small 5" drivers could put out as well as about how much wide dispersion of the mid and high frequencies they could deliver. In our case here, which is a problematic square shaped room with a low ceiling, we have them about 10' apart about 2' out from the wall and they sound EXCELLENT pretty much everywhere in the room as well as throughout the house. Of course the frequency balance is optimal and just stunning in a listening position midway between the speakers and in the center of the room, and at the sofa which is against the opposite wall from the speakers the room shape acts like a bass trap and attenuates the low end a bit. But overall, they sound fantastic, can get loud enough for loud music, and were worth the price. Plus the stands look awesome.

Poor connectivity, good sound

They sound good when they work. Get used to being told they’re offline. No other wireless product in my house has trouble connecting like these. Not worth the price if I feel like I’m crossing my fingers every time I try to use them.

Sounds great but quality issues

Beautiful speakers and sound great, but they had to be sent in for repairs less than 2 months into having them. Definitely have some quality issues which are covered under warranty (but you have to cover a few hundred dollars in shipping charges).

Wu

April 16, 2023

Enjoy the music it provides

Satisfied

0:29

very good HiFi system

very good HiFi system.

I wanted to get this system for a long time, but I was using 2K Bose speakers for 5 years and could not convince myself to spend over 4k to similar sound system. But I can say that you can feel the difference.

My first impression of this speaker is very heavy! 20lbs each with 40lbs subwoofer in this small size. Im sure there are lots of components and technology inside.

I can define this speaker as a HiFi headphone quality in a speaker version. When I first use HD800, I could hear sound that other speaker couldn't produce due to the noise and sensitivity. LS50 W2 will bring you to the next level. It lets you hear whatever the original recording. It is crystal clear and I felt the sound is warm. very good for listening musics as well as movie and sports. Well, surround speakers with Dolby ATMOS may give you more exciting sound, but Im sure you will get tired of tuned sound and want to look for a speaker that produces the original sound.

LS50 w2 sound quality is beyond my expectation. I originally was not amazed by KC62 subwoofer, but now I cannot listen without this. It gives much deeper and heavy sound yet the high is clear. one downside is that the woofer does not come with the RCA cable. I thought the subwoofer is wireless, but it needs additional $200 adapter to be wireless. You should expect to have RCA cable before purchasing the woofer.

Besides this, the sound quality is amazing and I don't regret my choice. I will enjoy this speaker until I will probably look for 10K system in next 5-10 years. :D

You won't need to replace these...ever

First off, these are some solid, heavy, beautiful looking and sounding set of (stand) speakers. Fair warning these are shipped out with the speakers unable to pair with ethernet UNLESS you get into the Kef app and run them wired, and let me tell you there is a huuuuuge difference in volume and sound. Wifi is spotty so in the next day or two I will be running a 50' cat8 through the attic and down the wall in my bedroom into their main.

These don't have the most massive soundstage but the are by far the crispest, clearest speakers I've ever heard and they really don't seem to like Apple Music, especially from a MacBook. iPhone seems to work fine but the MacBook will play for 10 seconds sometimes (wirelessly) then disconnect from airplay. Also, doppler has an app for iPhone for those who want to organize and play their FLAC files; def recommend as the soundstage improves with FLAC. Iow, even though these speakers "upsample", it will behoove you to feed them better source files.also, these need about 10-15 hours of break in.

OMG where have you been all my life?

These KEF speakers are the easiest, most beautiful, best sounding speakers I’ve ever had, powered or not powered. I don’t know what everyone is talking about regarding set up interface issues. The app for the LS 50 wireless 2 is amazing and automatically set the speakers up to my LG television. I had to do nothing but follow the prompts within the setup app. The sound quality is stunning. Especially for movies and streaming video. It sounds like effects are coming from behind you when really there are only two speakers in the room. This KEF sound technology is unlike anything Ive ever heard before. Wow, just wow. We also have a PS5 and my husband has fallen in love with these for gaming too. Totally worth it!

Unusable HDMI input, great sound

Amazing sound in a practical size and shape, beautiful design. The HDMI input keeps disconnecting, and if left connected they turn on at random intervals (for example, in the middle of the night), disconnect every 10-2 minutes, having to turn them on and off. Making things worse, the support team is unable to provide any solutions. I have exchanged probably 30 emails. They had me return the speakers and get a new pair, only to learn the new pair (and apparently all pairs), have the same issue. I’m still considering getting rid of them.

Zeke

May 10, 2021

Hi-Fi for the Rest of Us

USE CASE: The KEF LS50 Wireless II isn't just a pair of speakers, it's a complete digital audiophile system. Though flexible enough to accommodate numerous use cases, in my opinion its attractive, minimalist aesthetic and integrated electronics make it best suited for standalone use to bring superior stereo sound into a living or working space. These are excellent speakers and will absolutely reveal the difference between high and low resolution material, so I strongly encourage choosing a high fidelity source: consider upgrading your streaming subscription to the Hi-Fi tier or replacing compressed files with lossless versions if you store your music locally.

CONNECTIVITY: The LS50W2 is set up and controlled through the KEF Connect app, which requires an iOS or Android device. Once you’re up and running, though, you can use the speakers with almost any source. Roon, Google Cast, AirPlay 2, and UPnP are all supported, as is Bluetooth (though if you ask me using Bluetooth with speakers this good is like putting cheap gas in a racing car). You can also play directly from the apps and web browser interfaces of all the major music streaming services. Physical digital inputs are S/PDIF via TOSLINK or RCA and eARC-enabled HDMI suitable for connection to a television (the USB connector is a service port and does not function as an audio source). Analog input is limited to a solitary 3.5mm plug. Those considering use in a home theater should note that LFE is not supported, nor are outputs for surround speakers. Both units do, however, have an RCA subwoofer out.

SETUP: I found the system very easy to set up; if you’re comfortable using a smartphone or tablet in your daily life you should get on just fine. There’s a primary speaker- which has all of the inputs at the back, a simple set of touch controls on top, and the IR receiver for the remote in front- and a secondary speaker which receives its input signal from the primary. The quick setup guide will tell you that the primary speaker should be your right channel, but reversing them is a simple toggle in the app so put it on whichever side makes sense for your space. Each speaker must be connected to a grounded power socket- a pair of two meter cords are included and KEF has used standard C13 connectors so you can cheaply and easily buy longer ones if desired. The primary unit is equipped with Wi-Fi, but you can connect it to your router via Ethernet if your wireless is dodgy. Likewise the primary and secondary units communicate with each other wirelessly by default, but a toggle in the app can set them to use Ethernet instead (doing this also increases the audio sample rate from 96kHz to 192kHz). A single three meter Ethernet cable is included. I use mine over Wi-Fi without issue, though I did wire them together for the higher bitrate only because in my configuration there was really no reason not to. The included remote is basic, but convenient if you don’t want to keep picking up your phone/tablet just to use simple playback controls.

PERFORMANCE: The most impressive thing about the LS50W2 is its versatility: with a minimum of care taken positioning the speakers and utilizing the in-app EQ they can be made to sound very good in almost any space. I use them primarily for near- and mid-field listening on stands pointed at a chair near the back corner of my living room. Aside from an area rug in that corner this room has basically no acoustic treatment: hard floor and ceiling, lots of bare walls, only moderate furnishing (including a big glass table), and a large window with plastic blinds all along one side. A sound engineer would surely shake his head. Despite all this, they have an excellent horizontal soundstage and a level of fidelity at the main listening position that I would have doubted was possible given the setting. As great as they sound there, what’s crazier still is- though you obviously lose the soundstage- they don’t sound bad even if you’re just hanging around in the room; beside or behind them! With respect to placement and listening position they’re easily the most forgiving non-omnidirectional speakers I’ve ever lived with.

WEAKNESSES: Though quite powerful for their size (enough to fill pretty much any residential-sized room at what I would consider to be plenty loud volumes), note that these are designed to reproduce fine detail, not to blast your hair back at a house party. There’s very little vertical soundstage, though that’s not really a fair criticism considering you generally need big floorstanding speakers to get that. In my experience they don’t perform quite as well on a table or shelf as they do on a proper filled speaker stand, so I would recommend stand mounting if that’s possible for your space. The LS50W2’s greatest weakness from a sonic standpoint is another consequence of its small size: weak sub bass performance. If you live in an apartment like I do that might be a blessing in disguise, but if you want to bring the low end power the in-app EQ includes basic bass management controls to assist with the integration of one or two subwoofers through the aforementioned RCA outs. It's also important to keep in mind when making your choice that, since this is a self-contained streaming platform, you're effectively bundling a computer into your speakers: long-term that means these will be subject to at least partial obsolescence in a way that traditional speakers are not.

SUMMARY: If you’re a person who listens to a nice pair of Bose or Sonos speakers and thinks “wow, that sounds fantastic!” count yourself fortunate and buy something cheaper than this. If, however, you’ve heard such products and been left wondering “is this really the best that wireless audio has to offer?” I encourage you to give the KEF LS50 Wireless II a try. Properly set up it can rival traditional stereo systems with separate components well above its price point, but what really makes it extraordinary is that even if you just throw the speakers into an existing multi-use space with very little fiddling they can be made acceptable for critical listening. The audiophile community has a great many snobs who turn up their noses at this kind of casual approach to high end audio, and if I’m honest there’s better sound out there to be had for those with the time, money, and interest to make a hobby of it, but for the rest of us? At this price, with these features, this compact, this attractive, this flexible and easy to use ...I wouldn’t choose anything else.