“I’ll be interested to see what Elac comes out with as they have said there will be an active version of the UB5. It might even come Roon Ready since Elac make the Discovery.”
Unfortunately they indicated stopping development of that in the thread for it on their site. They said they’re still working on something in this vein but weren’t too specific. That prompted me to pick up a lightly used version of the LS50W’s.
Oh I had not heard that. Too bad. Would have been a nice option. I’m guessing they found it more difficult than expected.
I’m thinking just a little bit of selling the Kef’s when I get the warranty replacement. The failure of my and other peoples speakers is making me nervous especially since I bet I only get the remainder of the original warranty on the new replacements. I would have about 5 months left on the original warranty.
But they sound so great and the combination of Roon and USBridge/Sparky into the USB port is hard to beat.
Maybe I’ve got bad ears, but are people really able to hear a difference between KEF Wirelessly connecting to Tidal HIFI through the KEF iOS app vs using Roon through the USB port? I’m using a Mac Mini with the iFi Purifier 2.0 and I struggle to find a difference in sound between the two. In other words, they both sound great. For me it’s just easier to connect wirelessly to Tidal even if it’s not in MQA format.
I use Roon two ways. One is through a 4th Gen Apple TV from my Samsung JS9000 One connect box connected via HDM and then optical to the Kefs. I’m using blue jeans cable optical and iFI SPIDF purifier. So this would be Airplay from my Mac running Roon to the Apple TV. The iFi purifier was a nice improvement. Even better by a noticeable amount is by SonicTransporter to the Kef USB port. The Mac running Roon is on wifi and the Sonic transporter is ethernet and USB.
I haven’t tried it much through the Kef app because it kind of sucks plus I would rather use Roon.
Yep. KEF app was not good for me either. Only used it for set-up then forget it. I use ROON through RPi/hifiberry optical or analog from TV. I have also tried Bluetooth which was Meh…
I just wish the remote had separate buttons for input (like the Klipsch I had before0 as you can’t see the indicators from the lounging position on the couch… might have to rig up a mirror or something to see it. Luckily I switch rarely so it’s not THAT big a problem.
I’ll never use the Bluetooth. If it was AAC for Apple users then maybe.
I’ve been a lot happier with the Logitech 650 remote.
how do you deal with switching inputs via the 650? in myharmony software, the wireless and BT inputs are missing, so the remote doesn’t toggle through all inputs when i switch between, say, optical and aux.
I only toggle between Optical and USB which is fine on the Harmony.
I’ll never use the bluetooth and rarely use wireless because the Kef app is so bad.
Perhaps at some point, maybe the next version, Kef will implement auto-switching and Bluetooth over AAC and Airplay.
Optical–>USB should be fine, since it’s just one toggle to the right. but USB back to optical means toggling through Wireless, BT, & AUX, which the harmony won’t understand since it doesn’t “know” about the former two inputs.
Yes that’s too bad. Kef should have also put inputs on it’s remote. But it’s so bad not even that would make me move from the Harmony.
This is a polarizing product. Such great sound but such poor usability. Plus now I’m concerned about reliability since mine failed 8 months in and once the one year warranty is gone you are SOL.
Ugh. I hope Kef is taking all the issues and complaints seriously. i see the exact same complaints on all the reviews where they are sold.
discovered you can add/edit inputs in the myharmony software. i’ve added Wireless and Bluetooth inputs, and that seems to have fixed my problem switching inputs.
i’ve discovered another issue with my setup, although it’s not KEF’s fault. my Cisco STB will not pass PCM audio via HDMI. I have STB, Blu-ray, ATV, FireTV connected via HDMI to the TV. then, optical out from TV to the KEFs. the latter three sources work fine but the STB does not, despite being set to output “Stereo” audio. Verizon is sending me a new box, but i’m not convinced it will solve the problem.
Hmmm. What did you find so poor about the passive LS50s. I love them.
I will not expect Tidal + Roon to sound better than the Tidal + KEF iOS app. The source file from Tidal is the same (i don’t believe in MQA). The only difference is RAAT vs UPnP but since they are all bits to bits, they are not different in SQ.
Roon cost much more than the free app… but I’m paying for the convenience and better UI. That’s all.
I think the Roon guys would disagree about RAAT and UPnP being equal for several reasons 
Emm, maybe they do impact the sound a little in some scenarios but limit the use case to KEF LS50W… let’s say it’s not guilty to be incapable to tell the difference.
No doubt RAAT is a superior protocol and ROON is far superior software than KEF iOS app.
Lol, don’t laugh guys, but here is my solution for seeing the display on the speaker while sitting on my couch:
This one is two right angle Prisms (couldn’t get one long enough so had to buy a set).
This is a simple triangular prism and cost about $16 buck off amazon.
Yes, the image is upside down and backwards, but I can at least see it. The other solution was a Penta prism but I couldn’t find one that would not cost me a few hundred bucks.
The right angle ones work better, I think, and actually sit pretty nice and square on the display.
Nice – I’m right there with you! 
Experimenting with some acrylic mirror. The puzzles propping it up are just what was closest to hand.
I’m going to find the best size/angle and a nice minimal way to support the mirror then get it all lasercut.
For me it absolutely will sound better insofar that I’m using room correction in Roon (convolution filter).
Boom!
Ironically my Kefs arrive at Kef today for a warranty replacement since my right speaker went out. But I would have them back before this update to Roon comes out.
I live in Carlsbad and am very tempted to go to CEDIA in San Diego. $250 though.
