I take it bass goes much deeper with the Argons though?
Yes, definitely. The LS50w go pretty darn low, especially for such a small speaker, but the Argons are almost surprising. They seem to produce as much bass as my previous floorstanders/full range.
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I havent had a chance to hear the LS50w’s unfortunately. How do they handle bass when it comes to using them with movies? Is there much/any weight or impact to the bass?
On a side note, I have tested the new KEF LSX, and the remote was so horrible distance wise and had to be pointed exactly towards the master to get some input. How have you found the remote on the LS50w’s?
My experience of the LS50W’s is that they can reproduce decent bass down to 50Hz. However, it didn’t feel ‘authentic’ and in some bass heavy tracks I felt that they would struggle a little bit. Hence why I bought a subwoofer to compliment them. The original (passive) LS50’s rolled off quite significantly < 80Hz. The LS50W’s do some clever DSP stuff to yield better bass performance than their predecessors but, at the end of the day, they are having to work very hard to reproduce at 50hz. So, if you intend to watch movies my recommendation would be to pair a decent sub with the LS50W’s and set the crossover on the LS50W’s at 80Hz. Or get a speaker that is spec-ed to go down to < 40Hz. My Amphion Argon 3S are spec-ed down to 38Hz and they do that authentically (the passive radiator on the back helps!).
I would chime in to remind you that the “audiophile” way is not necessarily the only way. The world of pro audio splits opinions but if you are looking for a replacement for the KEF LS50W why not try the Genelec 8341 or the smaller 8331. They cost roughly twice as much but for the money you get the 5 year warranty and the known reliability of a manufacturer that still builds its speakers in EU and will continue to service them in 20 years from now, a three way design, analogic as well as digital inputs (the AES/EBU variety but there are reasonably priced sources that do Roon and AES - see the Auralic line for example) and room correction which, in my experience, is at least on par with Dirac.
Again, such a system would not be cheap but, given time and money, you can add subwoofers, multichannel speakers etc. The sound is less "magic’ than LS50W simply because the LS50 has a cheap sounding metal tweeter and a boxy coloration you can somewhat tame by using a subwoofer and Dirac but, no matter how much effort you would put into it, at the end of the day you can’t physically remove that rubbish tweeter or the resonant enclosure.
The Genelec by contrast sounds honest. I can’t hear the enclosure (the only “audiophile” brand I can think of offering similarly dead quiet enclosures is Wilson Audio), the tweeter is not the most transparent or refined but it does the job without drawing attention and to my ears it’s a lot better than the LS50W, the midrange is smooth and well judged and the bass does a remarkably good job for such a small speaker.
With the room correction and a good source (keeping in mind that, as 8341 has both a digital and analogic inputs, you can use it for instance with stereo and HT) I would say you get a lot of value for your money in a compact design that works and works reliably.
And like the Genelec, there are many other options, including some exotic monitors with beryllium tweeters, ribbon tweeters, coaxial designs etc from various companies at various price points.
After having my fair share of expensive stereo systems I have now given up on the “audiophile” world and embraced the pro way because I would need to spend a lot of money to better the 8341 and put up with several black (or silver) boxes. Considering these (by these I mean active studio monitors in general, not necessarily promoting a brand) speakers are used the world over to master the music you are listening to right now, I think it’s not unreasonable to look in their general direction and maybe go for an audition before deciding to splash your next cash or another “magical” pair of passive speakers.
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Genelec the Ones, Dutch & Ducth 8C and Kii Three are all like the big brother of KEF LS50 Wireless, but also costs substantially more. If I could afford it, Dutch & Ducth 8C would be on my shortlist for upgrades.
I have had Genelec 8030 A’s and they didn’t sound as good as the Kef ls50 Wireless.
Maybe the One’s have more magic. Not heard them.
While having never heard the ls50w’s I sure hope they are better then these Genelec studio monitors. I work a lot with studio monitors and all I can say is that the mentioned Genelecs are way overrated imho.
I use the Genelec G Four with a sub and have been thinking about upgrading to the 8341. They get rave reviews and are still about half the price of the Kii Three and the Dutch & Dutch 8C. Do you use them in a “normal” living room? And how are they when not used in near field?
I prefer the tweeter on my Genelec One’s over the LS50W. Smoother and strings sound better. The Kef’s are way better in most other areas though.
Don’t confuse Genelecs cheaper speakers with The Ones, they are very different. The complete names are Genelec 8331/8341/8351 SAM and here is what darko had to say about the 8431 model: https://darko.audio/2018/02/genelecs-the-ones-8341-think-inside-the-box/
Sorry I meant G One, the cheapest ones available I think. I have the class A/B amps, not the new Class D amps.
I think you would be hard pressed to find something better for the money. They are superb with acoustic, jazz and vocal music. You would probably want something bigger for, say, classical in a sizeable room. Also these are not as refined as an “audiophile” Sonus Faber - warm, silky, smooth, soothing etc is not in the Finish books. They are a rather odd mix of audiophile and studio sound with the Genelec flavour (midrange). They are very controlled, honest but without becoming detail obsessed, relentless etc.
Put it this way: I have lived with rather expensive speakers (Wilson Audio Duette would be an example), pretty good DACs (starting with the pro Benchmark / Lavry up to Weiss’ MAN 201), some of the better streamers on the market (think Naim NDS with their 500 series power supply) and all flavours of amplification, preampfification etc. and I am not easily impressed.
LS50 Wireless was an immediate dislike and after about 30 minutes they were back in the box and ready to go (despite a 3500£ subwoofer to help them and a MiniDSP Dirac). Could I live with them as my main speakers? No.
First of all the sub is a must to clear the midrange, otherwise the sound is a muddy mess. Even if that tweeter benefits from burn-in it is still a cheap metallic zing that spoils pretty much anything but electric guitars. The box coloration is so strong that even Dirac struggled to do anything about it.
With the 8341 on the other hand I can live. Are they perfect? No. Do I love them? Far from it. But I have no major issues with them.
I ran a Dirac calibration after their own GLM and Dirac showed a flat line - only offered a bit of correction below 60Hz.
The tweeter is not a Beryllium or diamond or even ribbon affair, it is not the last word in transparency, “air” or detail, but it does an honest job without drawing attention to itself.
The midrange, in Genelec tradition, is rich and renders voices with a wonderful realism.
The bass is controlled. Coming from an LS50 you will probably feel underwhelmed but purely because you have been conditioned to hear distortion and coloration. If you really listen to this bass and then look at what a mike reads you will realise that this is the real deal, flat, controlled and thanks to the three way design you can actually get away without a sub, with good output down to about 40Hz.
Last but not least, like the Wilson Audio’s, the enclosure is almost invisible. It’s difficult to explain how box resonance influences the sound - you would have to hear a quiet enclosure next to the LS50 to understand the difference.
Now can I get a better sound for 5000£? It depends of your definition of “better”. I think the right question to ask is: would 5000£ get me a more pleasing sound? I would say yes, particularly on the used market and I could fine tune a system to appeal to my tastes, even though I would probably end up spending more.
But this system would require space and maintenance and the bug to tweak this and upgrade that would always be there. And, like all things audiophile, it will be a specialised system that would deliver best with a certain type of music in a certain scenario.
Genelec on the other hand give you a pretty universal, compact and quality system on a budget. Maybe I would like it a bit more transparent, maybe I would like some silk and some butter, maybe I would like more scale with Bruckner, but that’s because I have been spoiled with better (and more expensive) choices.
Ultimately it is a system I have lived with for a year though and, despite the fleeting temptation to try this or that, I haven’t yet felt the urge to “upgrade”.
The pro approach is a bonus - Mogami Gold is cheap and works beautifully, there is a huge range of stands, wall mounts, ceiling mounts, truss mounts etc that are keenly priced and allow you to install the speakers in pretty much any environment.
I wouldn’t buy blindly, which is why I always advise people to try before spending money. The studio approach will certainly not be everyone’s cup of tea. But to my ears The Ones are much better than the LS50 Wireless and, while they cost significantly more, they come with a proper room correction with a microphone (and take my word for it, it is every bit as good as Dirac) and don’t require a subwoofer to sound best or “audiophile” stands or garden hose power cords or any other snake oils.
Which is why, with no intention to argue over the merits of the LS50, I am making you aware of a world outside the “audiophile” kingdom, that might offer you more value for your money.
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Thank you very much for the detailed description. Maybe it was for one of the other posters who owns LS50W. But it was nice to hear good desciption of the Genelec 8341 from someone who has tried other things in the price range and above. What streamer/player/dac do you use with the Genelecs?
Streamer and DAC is built into the Genelec 8341, you can still use external ones I guess but most who buys those will probably stick with the internal ones. Same with Ducth & Dutch, Kii Three and some more one-box solutions.
At the moment a humble Auralic Aries using the AES / EBU output straight into the speakers. I also use my Oppo 205 with very decent results, as well as my NAD M17 for home theatre.
I have yet to try them with a proper DAC because, since the speakers digitise all inputs, process them and then re-convert them to analogic, I am not convinced the benefits of a high end dac would really become apparent.
Darko seems to bet on his better DAC’s with the 8341 so I will probably test a few myself in the future but, as I said above, at the moment I don’t have a strong drive to upgrade, the sound performance is consistent and I don’t think a DAC would make a massive difference, in other words I don’t think the electronics / drivers would be transparent enough to reveal the better performance of an external DAC. Maybe a slightly different coloration but that can achieved by simply playing with GLM and creating a custom freq curve. However I am open to experimenting so I will demo some DACs, when I have some time.
They have a DAC but no streamer. The lan input is for control/room corretion.
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Thanks. On my budget the Auralic is not humble:)
The 8341 has one XLR balanced and one AES / EBU input. No streaming in the package. But any flavour of streamer with AES - Moon Mind2 Neo, Auralic Aries etc. Even the Oppo 203 can be modded with a Vanity card to output AES signal and I have also seen a Pi board with AES output.
I would say the modded Oppo is a pretty solid package, supporting CD, SACD, films, Roon, Tidal, UPnP and so on, widely available (until recently), moderately priced (although with the Vanity card it becomes a pretty expensive business) but, from all the sources I have tested so far, the Moon Mind takes the crown for best sounding AES output.
There are cheap cables / adapter from SPDIF to AES, like the HOSA CDL-313. With one of them you can use pretty much any digital source, Sonos, Pi and Chromecast included. So if AES sources are a concern, fear not, there are affordable ways of dealing with the problem.
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