KEF LS50 wireless - roon ready? [not roon ready, but supported natively]

It does not shut off after an hour when music is playing. It’s when no music is playing that the speaker shuts itself off. I want it to stay on all the time. There is a setting that is supposed to solve this however I have been unable to apply the setting correctly and get it to work.

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Summary

http://hk.kef.com/ls50-wireless-faq

John it is working for me now. Both stay on and 60 minutes.

What does total RAAT streaming encompass? I looked around but couldn’t find a description.

I still want to figure out a way to get both Roon and MQA via Tidal. Looks like Bluesound Node 2 via RCA ports to get the full unfold is the vest option right now.
But Ultra Rendu is very tempting.

  1. zone linking with other RAAT endpoints
  2. deep dive signal path
  3. stability and bug fixes that are possible straight from Roon (For example, see RAAT Audio Streaming Optimizations section of Roon 1.3 (Build 234) Is Live!)
  4. future stuff in Roon which comes for free with RAAT, but not with anything else…
  5. convenience switching and standby support

Darwin I think you may have missed my original post on this. There was instruction earlier in the thread for how to make sure the LS50W speakers stayed on for longer than the normal 60 minutes when no music was playing. What I said was that I followed the directions to insure that they stayed on all the time but have been unable to get that to work. Mine still shut off after an hour when no music is playing. I want them to stay on all the time until I decide to shut them down.

I posted the first standby settings in the LS50W firmware thread right after the firmware came out as I found them in the FAQ which was several weeks ago.
When I first set standby I did 60 minutes which worked at first then it went to it never stayed off at all but was on all the time.
I reset to to 60 minutes again and now it has been working for a few days.
However I was sure the original directions on the FAQ said to set the middle directions between wall and free space for 60 minutes and now it says set the right one for 60 minutes. Either the FAQ changed or I screwed up. I lean towards I screwed up :slight_smile:
So 60 minutes is working for me.

Roon through the Ethernet port would simply play no matter what source it is set to? Since Ethernet is not one of the source choices.
Also straight to Ethernet is better than USB how? Avoids converting from Ethernet to USB?

Good point re: the source setting. Maybe KEF could add an option in the app for the ‘Wifi’ source to switch between wifi or ethernet?

For me direct input via ethernet would be better than USB because I’d prefer not to have a computer or network renderer near the speakers. This makes the setup as simple as possible, one of the attractions of the LS50Ws and then I could sell my microRendu and buy a lifetime Roon subscription!

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I m sure we all love it if Roon could send through ETH (Roon readiness etc) and LS50W can receive over ETH. However USB is still a keeper for rainy days.

LS50W is an appliance, atleast for folks in my home, started to use it in whatever mode they think is good (mostly BT, they are good with SQ I guess :slight_smile: )

Good question on why ETH is better than USB. High Level, packets are sent over ETH are checked for Read Ack on each packet sent for correctness. Each bit is XORed with next bit to generate a signature for each packet sent, or something like that? USB is direct stream no correction ?
I m not an expert. Experts can comment better :slight_smile:

Ok I’m an IT guy so I speak ethernet but not for the purposes of audio :slight_smile:
Wouldn’t straight through ethernet be better because using something like a Rendu there has to be a translation of some sort between ethernet and USB?
Also all these USB reclockers give me pause about USB.
Plus it would be great to play Roon through the Def ethernet port and not have to switch sources.
Speaking of that my iFi PSIDF "purifier arrives today. My Kefs are connected to my Samsung JS900 and it will be tine resting to see if this improves anything. They sure get good reviews.
Plus the Samsung JS9000 TV optical is supposed to be so “dirty” that Sonos speakers drop packets on them.

I’m using it and music is clearer. Can hear more details in depth and width.

Sounds great :blush:

As long as I can play Roon to the Kefs without intermediary devices I’ll be happy :slight_smile:
Anything else is nice to have.

Got the iFi and plugged it in between my Kef’s and Samsung JS9000 optical out on One Connect box. Wow. Well worth $149. More distinct and separated and even seems louder.
I tested it playing the 2L Album Nordic sound with Mozart Viloin concerto from Tidal both with and without the iFi.
I’m going to order another one for my bedroom Vanatoo Ones on Aperta stands that are fed via Apple TV airplay and optical.

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Guys, reading through this thread has made me want to buy the KEFs. My wallet will suffer :stuck_out_tongue:

I understand the app is a work in progress… One other thing I noticed in the specs is the max SPL (1m distance) of 106dB. Do you find this is enough for a medium to large living room without running the speakers near the max? Of course I am not listening at 106 dB but if this is a reading at 1m, what happens when you sit 3 m away and want to listen to say up to 85db with some headroom?

For comparison, the Dynaudio X14a are rated at 116 dB

Just FYI - my room size 16x18. I sit around 14’ from LS50Ws. I don’t record in dB, but I m like reasonable low-mid when I owned Devialet. I think it’s about same volume level for LS50W. These sometimes feel enormous.

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192KHz SPDIF Works on the LS50W
Quite a few folks have been bemoaning that the LS50W only supports 96KHz SPDIF. Alhough the spec says 96kHz I’m finding that 192kHz SPDIF works very well - see the screenshot below. More specifically I’m using:

  1. A Raspberry Pi 2 connected to the Roon Core using a PowerLine Ethernet connection, with
  2. A Hi-Fiberry Digi+ Pro board. The power goes straight to the Digi+ board - search for “digi+ pro power separately” to find out how. Tests have shown that this improves the sound by avoiding noisy power circuits in the Raspberry Pi, and
  3. A 5V iFi iPower power supply to drive it, as well as …
  4. An Audioquest Evergreen SPDIF cable to connect the Digi+ pro board to the KEFs - although I guess any good quality cable would do.

I’m familiar with electronics so I built it myself in less than a day.

This has been working for over 6 months with no problems and the sound quality is very good. I can’t really tell any difference in the sound quality from playing the files through the Raspberry Pi/Digi+ Pro from the KEFLS50W playing the same music directly using UPNP Android app.

I think of this as a “poor man’s” microrendu, but it will do for me until the LS50W’s become Roon Ready.

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Many SPDIF and Optical interfaces can actually do 192/24. However, achieving it and having it be stable depends on all the pieces in the chain being able to handle it, the cable, the signal originator, etc etc. I once talked to a NAD tech about it, and he told me off the record, that while the NAD’s optical interface can handle 24/192; they don’t officially support it because they do not want to handle the tech support issues that arise from users whose rest of the chain can’t handle it. So, he told me to just try it and see if worked. I did, it did, and I still have it setup that way today.