I’m in Poland and the shop that does warranty repairs for KEF diagnosed the problem and they ordered parts for replacement. Good to hear others have been able to get theirs repaired too. In my case the turnaround is much worse. It’s been three weeks now.
Everyone in the U.S. I read about, including me, got brand new ones as replacements.
Actually I was told that the repair would involve putting in a new board and a new speaker. I am now concerned about how will that impact the sound, one speaker being new and the other one being run in. Also do they “pair” the speakers during the production? The shop does not want to replace the pair.
So it’s been almost 7 weeks since I brought the speakers in for repair to KEF’s authorized service center. First they wanted to repair the broken speaker. Later they decided to give me a pair of new speakers, but the colour I had was not available in the German warehouse. I have never had such a bad customer experience. I would not buy again, although I loved the sound.
Pretty typical, I’ve had a similar experience actually but not with Kef. Yes they do match the speaker parts, so just having a new board in one speaker is not a good idea. Good that you’re getting a new pair but you shouldn’t have to wait so long cause they were stuffing around deciding what to do.
To conclude my story, I received a “new” pair of speakers, ie. only the speakers themselves were said to be new, the rest of the accessories in box were not replaced and that is fine. However, the speakers came in with dirt marks (clearly visible on white) and no protective film - not that it serves any purpose, just had me doubt that they are in fact new. I would expect that a premium product comes pristine from a factory to customer… The production date on the box is October 2016, same as the previous pair, but firmware was already at version 2.3.0.
The good news is that I have another 2 years of warranty starting now, no thanks to KEF, but to EU consumer law I think.
Curiously, there were a few others cases of the same issue with LS50W in the service shop…
So far it seems like U.S. warranty replacements have been brand new. Mine was including accessories. I don’t think they have a U.S. repair shop just a distributor so can only replace but that’s conjecture on my part.
Something is off about your being manufactured in oct 2016 but the latest firmware, dirt and no film. I’m guessing they are a return or demo speakers… I’ve spent a lot of years living and working in europe so am aware of their consumer protection laws which we don’t have here and less and less every day…I don’t think my Kef warranty started over again when they were replaced which means the original warranty ends any day now as i got them in January of last year…
Roon integration with these is so great I’m just going to live with Kef’s issues.
Bringing this one back to add my issue to the list. First the stats:
- Manufactured 11/2016
- Running latest firmware.
- Approx. 150 - 200 hours on them.
Was listening to albums for about 3 hours on Sunday and everything was perfectly fine. Went to listen to an album Monday night and about half a side in it sounded like the left (slave) speaker’s woofer stopped working.
Played through the rest of the side (was needledropping) and then switched to the Optical input to rule out the Turntable and Phono Preamp as the fault. Used a mono CD and confirmed it was an issue with the speaker.
Checked the firmware version, it was up to date.
Disconnected and reconnected all source connection and the speaker-to-speaker cable.
Performed a Reset which did not work.
Unplugged both speaker’s power cords for a minute and reconnected. Everything was working fine again…for about a minute.
Unplugged just the slave speaker’s power cord - did not work.
Unplugged just the master speaker’s power cord - sound came back as normal…for about a minute.
Contacted KEF USA and they requested I send the speakers back which I’m doing today.
I’m obviously well out of the curiously short 1 year warranty at this point which is my reason for updating this post - to see how they deal with out-of-warranty repairs. I agree with the earlier poster that suggested KEF should have simply extended the warranty on all LS50Ws within a given production batch to at least 5 years (the standard warranty on the much-less complex passive speakers). They could have saved a lot of the bad feeling that have resulted as well as the hesitation prospective buyers feel when they come across the issues that are being reported.
As a big KEF fan I’m hoping they’re able to fix my pair at no extra charge other than shipping. I love the LS50W as it seems to me to be the fully-realized version of what they intended the LS50 to be (I lived with the passives for close to 4 years). I really don’t want to have to start a new search at this point, even though there are more options now than there were 3 years ago.
I’ll report back in about a month (they quote a 3 week turnaround time to diagnose and repair).
Hello,
Please I have my new house under construction 400m2
I need buy several wireless speakers
in my dedicated home theater and hi-fi rooms I have very high-end equipment.
and I have a living room of 45m2 I want to put the kef ls50 wireless and in the other rooms and cooking bluesound pulse 2i
I ask is what you advise me bought the 50 wireless and all the problems mentioned in this subject have disappeared since the first series of manufacture and new models are repaired with new motherboards and failures no longer exist or well the defects always persisted even have the last series of manufacture and the best to steer safe of other brands and to avoid the ls50 wireless
Thank you