Of course the sound of the Powernode compared to the Bluesound sounder would depend a lot of what speakers you used.
I just can’t use a Soundbar as I need real stereo imaging.
I have compared the R300 with the LS50 (passive) at my dealer a year ago, I liked the R300 slightly better. The goal of this session was to buy an amp btw. I liked the slightly bigger/fuller soundstage of the R300.
In the end I bought nothing ;-). My brother gave me his amp and speakers (R300).
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@Rik_Carter If you have a chance, give the Amphion monitors a try, I used to have Argon2’s and they were the best monitors I’ve ever heard.
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This is the one big difference between my LS50W’s and my “reference” system with floor standers and ribbon tweeters. While the highs have tremendous air and space around them on the LS50W’s, they also have a bit of grain and edginess. Not fatiguing in any way, but not silky smooth and clear like my Raal Ribbon tweeters. It is particularly apparently on bowed string instruments (cello, etc) - I don’t think they fare so well there. In most other respects, the LS50W’s are outstanding.
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Got a pair of Amphion Argon 3S arriving tomorrow. They are ex-demo, mint condition for £1,200 and I’ve got them on a 14-day money back guarantee. Be interesting to see how they pair up with the Bluesound Powernode. Kind of my ‘poor mans version’ of @woodford setup 
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Hi,
I auditioned the passive LS50 a few days ago. The shop didn’t have the wireless, but the passive sounds really well, mids and highs are incredible, while bass is a bit dissapointing. I understand that bass is one of the best improvements in the wireless. I really would like to buy the active but the reliability issues and the terrible KEF policy makes me very wary yo buy them 
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Just curious which KEF policy you are referring to?
Is it not 1 year on the electronics and 5 years on the non-active components?
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Pretty crazy. Should be two years. In Europe I think it is two years?
KEF has an official Facebook group where they remove posts about the issues some people has experienced with their LS50 Wireless. In addition, from what I read, it seems that they deny the issues or at least they make no comments about the reliability of the speakers or the issue rate they have.
Yes, it is two years in Europe if bought from an authorized dealer. However I don’t know what will happen after the Brexit.
Yeah they have actual consumer protections in euorpe unlike the U.S.
Yes we do, but enforcing them (as a consumer) isn’t always easy.
Interesting. I lived in Spain, Switzerland and Italy for a few years each before moving to southern california.
They try not to make it easy but that isn’t KEF, quite often that is the dealers. I would say that in the UK consumer protection is pretty robust.
The Mac updater has been pulled and it says for big fixes. Worked fine for me.
Just an update of my choices. After listening to some models in the shop, including some KEF (LS50 passive and R300), i decided to buy something else, some speakers made by the shop itself, with Scan Speak drivers. Everything else (design, crossover, box, etc.) is done by themselves and they sound great! They are bigger, heavier and more expensive than the KEF but the mids and highs are great, slightly better than the LS50, while the bass is much better, very detailed, controlled and deep (38 Hz at -3dB, 26 Hz at -6db) so I won’t need a sub 
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Just to update the story of my pair of LS-50Ws…they got repaired back at KEF UK (with less than one week turnaround and at no charge) and today I got them back. They are working wonderfully again…in pristine condition and now running latest firmware.
I’m very happy with the service KEF provided on this. But this time I’ll keep the shipping-box for a while
Interesting. In the U.S. it seems they just give you new ones. They probably have facilities in the UK we don’t have here.
The latest firmware update sounds like it fixes the issue I had recently where the left speaker didn’t want to connect but just kept clicking and after about two hours of restarts it finally connected again.
Roon integration makes this a killer combination.
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