I can relate to a few fellow owners here that my LS50W2 unboxing and first experience has been and still is a complete disaster. I can’t believe the most marketed product in the HiFi world is broken in so many ways, even after almost 6 months of being out.
Was only able to get it on Wifi after 4 tries, kept saying it’s offline
HDMI ARC output from my LG OLED B8 produces no sound
Roon Ready isn’t available
Roon via Airplay or Google Cast unstable and sometimes requires to press play several times to actually start playing, also limited to 48kHz
Spotify randomly stops or incorrectly displays playing when it’s not and the other way around
Firmware update 1.3 which is supposed to address some of the issues is “temporarily suspended”.
So literally every use case I ordered them for either completely doesn’t work or is seriously flawed.
I’ve not had a similarly disastrous experience with any other device in a long time (and I’m a gadget freak).
Sorry, that’s more of a rant than asking for help, but if anyone has an idea on how to make them play from LG OLED via HDMI please let me know.
I have issues with eARC and also with the so-called “second standby mode”, especially when associated with my 2020 Sony Bravia TV.
I am not using Wi-fi. I have my primary speaker connected by cable to my LAN and the two speakers connected by the ethernet cable also. It has been rock solid with no dropouts and the remote working perfectly. If you can, try hooking them up by wire to get a baseline for their potential.
I am actually excited that they pulled the 1.3 firmware. The usually very small optimist in me is hoping that this is in preparation for releasing a firmware with Roon Ready enabled.
Hi - just wanted to follow up with everyone to see if anyone’s hdmi arc issue has been resolved with firmware now updated to 1.7 since the first post where it was at 1.3. My Samsung TV still doesn’t work.
I have a Samsung q90 into nad m10. This often drops out on hdmi. I have read up that Samsung is often the problem on earc. Resetting both sometimes works but it’s a faff.
I have Samsung Q95T connected to Wireless II’s via HDMI into the HDMI eARC port directly. I did not notice any drop outs. I have had the speakers for a week, but I have upgraded to firmware 2.0 at the start.
Wish I would’ve seen this thread before purchasing these speakers.
I’m experiencing the same thing everyone else is…
I have my LS50 Wireless 2s connected via HDMI (arc) with a Audioquest cinnamon cable. Along with a audioquest cinnamon ethernet cable between the two speakers. The KC62 is also hard wired connected and all power is being sent via a Panamax M5400
Not to toot my own horn but it’s basically as good as it gets (gear and accessories wise).
And yet I cannot for the life of me keep the LS50’s from disconnecting from my Sony OLED. It will play for upwards of around 20 mins (at times) before dropping out and my TV telling me it’s switching to “internal TV speakers”… If I go to the TV settings to switch it back to “External speakers” it plays no sound. Until of course I restart the LS50’s and we’re back to square 1 for up to 20 or so mins. This is absolutely unacceptable!
The only thing that works is plugging them in via digital optical but alas that way sucks for no volume control, sync with TV power on/off, and even audio quality.
I’ve tried resetting both LS50’s and the TV. I’ve tried different outlets (in case of a power problem). I’ve changed settings in the KEF app. I’ve checked for updates. Nothing.
Anyone with any other ideas would be appreciated. Can’t believe I dropped over $6k on all this only for these kind of problems…
My LS50 Wireless 2s are connected to an older Sony TV via ARC with no dropouts. I found that, not only did I have to set the TV to PCM output instead of Dolby Digital, I had to also reset my cable box, which involved Googling for some arcane commands to get beyond the standard menus (Sorry I can’t provide better info but I’m wintering in FL and can’t take a look at the setup). Good luck!
I gave up and returned my LS50WIIs.
They looked great next to my Samsung Serif TV (all in white) but audio over HDMI earc was pretty flaky… was prone to bursts of very loud random noise whilst channel surfing.
I tried Bluetooth also but the delay made that pretty unusable.
The KEF android app to control everything never worked very well for me either as it was prone to losing the connection though I have heard the iPhone version is better.
Now using a pair of Wharfedale Evo 4.4 with an old-school Quad 306/405 amplifier, and an Allo Boss2 as Roon endpoint, and TV optical out to Arylic S50+.
I gave up and sent mine back also. Luckily I bought them from Crutchfield and had asked them to inquire about the Roon Ready issue. I was way beyond the return window but they still accepted them back.
I hope that the TV issue got resolved. They made great TV speakers but for me fell short of high end playback.
If you have a cable box or streaming box connected to your TV, then disable their CEC settings. This makes the TV the controlling unit. Do the same for anything else connecting such as a gaming system. I had this issue as well and after some research came across this fix. After applied, I have had no further issues at all with my LSXii’s and KC 62 hooked up to my TV.
Just seeing this. I recently replaced my original LSX’s with some new LSX v2’s. Although I gave up on the LS50II’s I love the LSX’s.
I have the opposite issue now. I want to control the volume with my TV remote using an HDMI cable with ARC and CEC enabled. I have a Sony Bravia TV that does support ARC/eARC and CEC as well. The KEFs show up in the TV settings and the TV remote seems to adjust volume and mute however when switching over to TV/HDMI I get a very brief and loud audio output …and then no audio. So CEC is working but ARC is not.
I have tried 3 different HDMI cables and disconnected the cable from my cable box to rule out a ground loop. I also tried all of the various “fixes” including disconnecting cables and rebooting the KEFs and the TV. No joy.
All of the other inputs including Roon work great, just not the ARC part of HDMI. The audio quality is a step up from the original LSXs, especially via the optical input. Sadly HDMI was one of the reasons that I upgraded.