When will KEF LS50 Wireless II be Roon Ready? [They are now!]

Processing at 384kHz is ‘expensive’ and unlikely. It is common to do DSP in active speakers like this on a fixed sample rate - like 96 or maybe 192kHz. Everything is then re-sampled to this rate.
Even the superb Dutch&Dutch 8c does this. It accepts 192kHz max on it’s AES/EBU input, but will re-sample to 48kHz which is the DSP working rate.

Simply put, it will accept most files you can throw at it. If your source equipment doesn’t or can’t convert to PCM 192 or 96, LS50W2 will do that itself. For example I find some equipment that I’ve installed a Roon Core on to be less than great when converting DSD to PCM on the fly.

Nothing misleading about it, as the specs are there in black and white.

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Thank you, it makes sense.

Any insight about the final Roon certification when the speakers are formally released/available?

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John Darko has been playing with a pair for a few weeks. He is a big Roon fan, knows his way around Roon very well, and he says that the new IIs are now fully RAAT compliant although he notes they are not listed as such yet on the Roon compatibility list - https://darko.audio/2020/09/kef-readies-ls50-meta-ls50-wireless-ii/

I’ve been a 1st gen KEF LS50w user for about a year now and can confirm that they can act (flawlessly for me) as a Roon end point but don’t implement all the stuff for grouping etc.

If KEF have implemented the full Roon endpoint capability in the latest LS50W II what else will that add apart from grouping? Will Roon be able to take the endpoint out of standby & select the correct input when music is first sent to it?

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LS50W2 has network standby, so when it receives a signal over network, it will wake up (can also set one physical source to do the same e.g. the HDMI for easy soundbar replacement usage).

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Thanks. Great to know. I think I’ll wait for a few more reviews but I’m seriously tempted to upgrade my LS50w Mk1. I love what I have now, I actually think they sound better than the Meridian 6000 that I had before (and failed after about 24 years of use - no complaints) but if it’s really true that KEF have noticeably improved sound quality over what I already considered excellent, plus the convenience of more complete Roon support, that’s quite compelling. I do already also use my KEF for TV sound over optical so if eARC HDMI also improves capabilities and convenience there that is just more added value.

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Quick correction to your statement, what John Darko says is…“at time of review they are uncertified”…like many other products focus of the discussions in these forums because of Roon’s (correct) new policy…that means when you get the speakers you won’t be able to work with (native) Roon until they are formally certified…and also based on my previous experience, I’m not spending any more money in products that claim they WILL BE certified and then takes years to actually (never) get it… meantime you’re on your own trying to fix bugs and begging for help from the vendor and Roon, etc…and never know if the problem is related to the uncertified product or hw issues or network or…for me the value prop of active speakers and Roon is a Plug&Play sound system with the best/easy/just works front end in the market…

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We have unit(s) with Roon, but that’s all I know at this stage (I’m not involved in that, so I’m not going to speculate anything). But it’s being worked on, and when one could play uncertified devices, it was working well. As a Roon fan, the experience was pretty much as I’d expect. Completely understand the sentiment though.

But until certification, at least we’ve got the dual avenues of AirPlay and Chromecast available, so while not full fat/sugar/calories, at least you can see it, play to it and get it into a group with some other components.

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Just when I thought I definitely didn’t need to upgrade my LS50W1s…

How do you think I feel? :rofl: I’ve had to play with them for ages - not being able to talk about them AND knowing that I’m going to have to upgrade my own Mk 1s!

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Ben - Assuming I do upgrade (is that my wallet that I hear screaming in the background?) is there any compelling reason to upgrade my stands? I have the matching Mk1 stands at the moment and, while the screw attachments on the mk2 stands sound like a good idea, I’ve not knocked my mk1s off their stands yet and since the Mk2s are the same footprint I assume they’ll work and look just fine on the Mk1 stands.

Got a cordless drill? :wink:

Colour matching, spike shoes in the box and the aforementioned bolting holes.

Ben, do you know if the wi-fi streaming capabilities of the newer Mk ii are more robust than the original? I have the original LS50w but have struggled with wi-fi streaming. The original needs a strong 5ghz network signal to work ok in wi-fi mode. it does not do well with medium or weak signals. I currently have it connected via ethernet because of variable wi-fi signal strength issues.

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Ben, could the IIs be grouped with the originals?

I Brought LS50 W on 2nd September … hahahah… fell for the discount… Now we know why… :grinning:

As I know you will know, the specific network environment plays a part (e.g. putting your router next to something big and metal is not a great idea, 5GHz going through a bunch of thick walls reduces 5GHz range considerably etc) and if cabling is possible, I recommend it for any and all network devices.

But we live in the real world. The new WiFi module is improved. We can’t test with every router in the world, but what we have tested - different brands, models, some of the popular mesh networks, in home and office environments… cannot report a problem from those. We’ve also added support for the DFS channels in 5GHz.

Not natively, no. LS50W is Roon Tested as opposed to Roon Ready, nor does it have AirPlay or Chromecast. You would have to add a Bridge or other Roon Ready capable streamer into the hardwired source inputs.

LSX can be grouped however, through the AirPlay 2 implementation.

Sorry for asking a dumb question what happens if i pass more then 384 Khz frequency via the AUX … I mean to ask what is the frequency range it can handle?

@Tushar_das

No such thing as a dumb question.

It’s an analogue input, so there is no sampling rate involved at input. It will, however, go through AD conversion - partly because the interspeaker connection is digital, and also so that we can apply the DSP to the analogue source as well.

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