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

Has anyone heard an eta for LS50 roon readiness?

A couple weeks ago it was within a few weeks but we also know there is some bug they are working on.

I hope that this bug is resolvable. Having Kef demo Roon at CEDIA is a big difference from letting the update out into the wild. I’m just hoping that bug isn’t too difficult to resolve (eg. too many uncontrolled use cases whereby it can occur).

1 Like

I asked Roon on twitter if they could give me an indication of a time frame on the readiness of the LS50 wireless speakers. I got the response…

“still working out one last kink …”

Here’s hoping they get that sorted quickly. I have faith. And am looking forward to it. My dislike of the KEF app grows every day.

1 Like

This is probably a very redundant comment but I am very eagerly expecting this update.
I got my LS50W about two months ago and they are just amazing but biggest flaw is inability to use them with roon without purchasing other devices. I am very much on the fence about sotm-200 wondering if it would be better than just roon only with this update streaming.

The direct from Roon to Kef won’t be full RAAT streaming or do multi-room which may be a reason for some to use something else.
It will also be interesting to A/B sound quality using different devices.

1 Like

Hi all, I got a pair of LS50W yesterday and used Audirvana plus to play the music via DLNA, but I accidentally pushed the volume to maximum in a few seconds so I’m very worry now, did it damage the LS50W?

only time and listening will tell.

1 Like

Doubtful you damaged it.

2 Likes

U[quote=“Jin_Jin, post:486, topic:15054”]
so I’m very worry now, did it damage the LS50W?
[/quote]

It is unlikely as the DSP and amps are engineered specifically to prevent overloading the drivers. What you experienced was a few seconds of very loud music which can be very unsettling. Now if you had been using an external amp with an ordinary pair of LS50s and did the same thing then the uncertainty increases considerably… but that’s not the case so you’ve nothing to worry about.

1 Like

As a dev myself, hearing it explained to me it does sound like one of those “ghost in the machine” type issues, one that is difficult to find even a proximate cause let alone an isolated root cause. As it hasn’t been resolved yet my fear is the issue is in the LS50 firmware and Roon’s implementation is exacerbating it, so they may be cooking up a workaround.

It hasn’t been that long since DarKo announced it and Roon confirmed.

I doubt that KEF would release a product that can be destroyed by dialing up the volume. This is very different from supplying a lot of power to a passive speaker. There is no power going into the LS50Ws. You just told the LS50Ws to play as loud as possible within their capabilities. It is nice to hear that they play louder than you would ever want them to play.

1 Like

It’s been 5 weeks which is a bit longer than the “next few weeks” mentioned. I personally can’t recall working on a bug that long, generally speaking when you spend more than a week even on a very complex system you typically have exhausted potential culprits and start to take a look at workarounds.

That said, it may have already been addressed but other things were added for the next release that still need to be wrapped up, or maybe other issues with the implementation surfaced and/or ways to make it more efficient were discovered.

I looked, it’s been about a month so longer than I remembered.
You aren’t the only developer here by the way and I think it’s early to assume they ran into a showstopper issue.

They literally are working to fix a showstopper issue. The nature of which was described to me at CEDIA and I believe hinted at by Roon earlier in this thread. It was feature complete when it was shown there.

I mean one that would prevent this from happening at all. I expect they will work through it.

Right, I wasn’t saying they wouldn’t. Just my concern is that they couldn’t determine the source of the issue and are investigating workarounds which can really push things out.

New firmware (and iOS app) is out - spotify connect! According to the release notes this is for both, Microsoft Windows and OSX but the Mac link isn’t active (yet?).

MCU v2.3.0
• Add support to swap between Left and Right speakers

Wi-Fi v1.1.4
• Add “Spotify Connect” support (compatibility varies by country)

DSP v0.54
• No update

DarKo’s commentary
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/10/spotify-kef-high-end-audio-for-mainstreamers/