Amazon.com: Customer reviews: KEF LS50 Wireless II Powered Bookshelf Speakers

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024

Color: Titanium GreyPattern: SpeakersVerified Purchase

Very well built and accurate sounding speakers. Easy to set up with the app and place because of their smaller size, but they are heavy. I did not buy the stands but may in the future. My next addition will be to get the KC62 sub woofer. The LS50’s sound great but lack any deep bass. And all this depends on room size. I have them in a medium sized apartment where they sound great and fill the room but in a big room I don’t think they would impress as much… Only issue that I had with set up was the app would not work on my iPad? But it works perfectly on my iPhone…

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K. L. Manheimer

The best combination of high quality sound, functionality, and compactness that I've encountered

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2021

Color: Carbon BlackPattern: SpeakersVerified Purchase

As someone who appreciates high quality sound and wants that with the convenience of multi-room functionality that Wi-Fi streaming provides, this speaker system is an absolute revolution.

It says a lot about the situation that I spent way less time setting up the new system than I did taking down the old one. I estimate that I replaced more than 170 lbs of equipment with around 40 lbs that this pair of speakers (including built-in amps and etc) weighs. So much less clutter! Setup was effortless and effective, the sound is better (and it was previously quite good, until recently, when my old power amp died) and the functionality is spectacularly better. This system offers an extremely simple and direct route to decent to very good sound (better at the price than I could achieve with lots of careful effort over many years) and all the functionality that I, personally, currently want.

I used an inexpensive old subwoofer with the old setup. I continue to use it with these new speakers. I think I would be happy without the subwoofer, but like the tiny bit of additional rich low-bass and kick that it provides.

That points to something that astonishes me about this system. The KEF Connect app equalizer made it very easy to account for the situation of the speakers in the room and to incorporate the subwoofer. I'm a software developer, and think they did an extremely good job with the human factors of the app. I don't need or want the app to provide the functionality that my streaming music players provide – as another reviewer said, let Google and App and Tidal, Roon, etc do that. I'm very pleased with how well the app does what I need it to do. Similarly, the remote control gives me a convenient way to adjust the volume, mute, and on rare occasions when the I need to override the automatic source detection, change the source.

I haven't yet said anything specific about the sound, and I'm still finding out how it is. So far, I'm delighted. I'm finding more clarity, richness, and dynamics than I've experienced before in my home. I continue to go through different parts of my collection, as the mood strikes, and discover myself enjoying aspects of the music that I hadn't noticed before. People often talk about the almost palpable imaging that Kef's coincident-centers Uni-Q drivers provide. It's true, and it enhances the experience. The thing is, I haven't found any downsides. As I said, they're still new, there's more to discover. But I'm happy. (-:

I've only had the speakers for a few weeks, and am wary of an "all eggs in one basket" dependency on them. I will be dependent on KEF and/or after-market repair services if something breaks. That said, this is KEF's second iteration of the model, which could mean that a lot of the bugs have been shaken out. Plus I was in a bind with the old system when my power amp died, and that's the case for any component in the multi-component chain. It's all trade-offs.

Ultimately, I got a high quality, exquisitely well-integrated system. Provided that they're reliable, for anyone who streams music in their home, these are the best prospects that I've encountered for getting high fidelity and high functionality at anywhere near this price, more so than anything else I've seen up to now.

8 people found this helpful

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royCfus

Worth every penny

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2022

Color: Mineral WhitePattern: SpeakersVerified Purchase

These are fantastic speakers. The clarity ,detail, and imaging exceeded my expectations. They have a warmer tone to them that I was not sure I liked at first. I tend to prefer sound on the slightly brighter side of neutral but after they broke in I was very happy with what I heard. The KEF Connect app is decent, better than some and worse than others. You can control inputs through the app on your phone, connect directly through Airplay for YouTube videos, and PC using Tidal. The Wi-Fi connection glitched on me when I had connected and played through Tidal on my PC, than switched back to the app again using Tidal on my phone. At that point, selected songs would not play and I had to disconnect the power and let them reset. Save some early app glitches that software can fix, the rest of the app and its features are easy to use and intuitive which is welcome. They communicate wirelessly between themselves and come with a cable that when connected, improves the quality ceiling and could eliminate drop-outs if encountered. I would recommend these to anyone wanting great sounding speakers in an all-in-one space saving package.

3 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

From a listening experience to an "I'm in front of the band" experience

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2024

Color: Crimson RedPattern: SpeakersVerified Purchase

I've been interested in audio equipment for a while ranging from my own at home set ups to whatever you might find at clubs and as am avid music lover, having good sound completely changes the experience and the emotion evoked by music. My previous setup was a 2.1 system composed of pioneer bs22s and a Polk psw10 sub powered by a Yamaha receiver. Not amazing but not bad either after room correction and set up to my liking. Wanting to avoid having to shell out on a better receiver, but wanting better speakers, I went the active speaker route.

Enter the LS50 Wireless II. As soon as I turned them on, I could already tell the openness they provide as well as the detail. Every note is the, not hidden not muddled but very clearly present. Even pushing then to 95% volume I noticed no sound distortion.
With classical and jazz music, I feel like I'm in front of the band and the instruments truly come alive. Electronic music also pops right out, although I suggest a sub to open them up a little more.

Overall, supremely surprised and absolutely enjoying these speakers. I was expecting a lot and I'm happy to say they surpassed my expectations.

One person found this helpful

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S. Kosloske

Definitely 5 stars - at $1999

Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2023

Color: Carbon BlackPattern: SpeakersVerified Purchase

They're not perfect, I'll get into that more below. But they're AMAZING.
I had the original LS50's for years, and loved them. Since almost all of my listening is from DAP or streaming, I decided to scale-down, sell my LS50's, amp and subwoofer, and move to the new wireless speakers.
The sound is just amazing. Speakers this small shouldn't be able to have great sound AND imaging. Placement matters a little, I have mine 8' apart, and about 6 inches from the wall. And the room does matter, but that's true of all speakers. My listening room is about as bright as you can get, choosing the "bright room" EQ fixed that with no tweaking.

For some reason, KEF didn't put a USB in jack on these. That's a miss, IMHO. You can work around it, but should you have to? Even the LSX's have USB.

The software is good, but not great. Setup and interface are easy to learn, but overall, kind of messy. And the software pretty much assumes you're using one of the supported streaming services. I prefer to use the soft-buttons on the master speaker, when using a DAP.

Overall, at least for me, at the sale price of $1999, these are just crazy-good.

4 people found this helpful

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Joonhong

very good HiFi system

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2023

Color: Mineral WhitePattern: SpeakersVerified Purchase

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

6 people found this helpful

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Mike Deem

Spotify Connect Does Not Work

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2021

Color: Carbon BlackPattern: SpeakersVerified Purchase

Spotify Connect support was a primay motivation for buying these. But does not work. It seems to be network related. I should not have to setup a legacy 2.5 network and assign static ip adresses to use a "top tier" product (these are suggested work arounds, but are reported as not working in many cases and I have not had time to try).

Also the sound is not really any better than the other speakers I have that cost half as much. I do not claim to be an audiofile with delicate ears, but an everyday listener working at a desk.

2 people found this helpful

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DNB

Great sound. Unusable with Spotify.

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2021

Color: Carbon BlackPattern: SpeakersVerified Purchase

10/21/21 Update: The latest firmware update made these unusable with Spotify. I don’t know about other services. The connection test now included in the app shows the connection dwindling from up to 60 down to .1 in less than a minute ! The speaker cannot sustain a connection for more than few minutes. The music will stutter, switch tracks or stop completely. They claim they have dealt with the Spotify connection issue in the latest update. In fact, they made it infinitely worse. It is dumbfounding that a company this smart in many ways cannot solve this issue after multiple attempts, especially since their lsx speakers connect flawless to the same network.

These are everything I need sonically, especially with the added KEF sub KC62. They are a joy to listen to. They were fine until the update which ruined them. Now I’m always cringing as I wait for the next dropout which can last a few milliseconds or a second or two. Sometimes they jump to the next song on the playlist and after a few minutes, they consistently stuttered near the end of every song. Takes all the joy out of the great sound.

The first time I sought support, the response was fast an helpful. Since then, requests for help have gone completely ignored.

It is a mystery how a company can be this good and this bad at the same time.

6 people found this helpful

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