KEF LS50W Firmware update

indeed.

the concept is great, support exemplary, but the software is not ready for primetime. i’m very disappointed.

i would not buy them again.

I hear that a lot from people. Too bad. The speakers are great but the KEF software is not.

I thought I bricked mine as well with a mac update. Same lights were flashing. I unplugged both of them and started the updater again and it took over. They are working now and Spotify sees them. It just wasn’t done… totally weird experience.

I like to keep my tech up to date, but reading this thread has me terrified of trying. These speakers are my main listening setup, I just got them, so bricking them and having to figure out how to have them replaced would suck.

I don’t need the channel swap feature although the standby mode change would be very nice (what the hell were they thinking not including this to begin with?!).

I love these speakers, they are an absolute miracle of electrical and acoustical engineering and they meet most of my needs and sound and look amazing - I couldn’t ask for more in those ways.

However, as everyone has noted, the software is unconscionably sub-par. That KEF would allow the release of a flagship product with a critical feature set (the software) of such incredibly poor quality, is hard to understand. Other than that some executive at KEF decided to save $$ by outsourcing dev to India or China, which is very much what this feels like to me. (As an IT executive this is unfortunately familiar territory).

I’d like to encourage KEF to take development in house or at least hire a reputable western company to re-start the software from scratch.

Meantime, I can’t see a reason to risk updating until things look far more stable.

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I would feel the same as you Jon. I don’t need the channel swap either. You can do the ‘standby’ changes on the previous firmware version which you should already have installed. Fortunately for me my replacement pair came with the latest firmware already installed.

The bricking issues were with the Mac update. Are you using a Mac? I was able to get the update completed after first having issues. I get that you are nervous.

Agreed here too
Don’t think I’ll bother at this stage given the risk

I’m not trying Spotify at MP3 rates and struggle to see when stereo channel swapping would ever be of interest…

Roon integration yes for sure I’ll try that then hopefully it comes with adequate testing and support

The firmware update process also seems bizarrely prehistoric which is further offputting

@John_Aiello, I’m using Windows 10.

@Scott_Fletcher, “bizarrely prehistoric” is based on what’s been said here, a good way to describe it. For goodness sake the speakers are Ethernet connected, why are we attaching a USB cable to a laptop???

To KEF: I really hope someone is reading this.

To be clear, I REALLY love these speakers for what they fundamentally do. But, being a denizen of the 21st century, am sorely disappointed with the software.

  • Interface and workflow design: awkward and counter-intuitive,
  • Glitchiness of the IOS app: random crashes, unexpected reverts of product feature configurations,
  • Firmware update arcane requirements and unacceptable failure rate

These are all things most of us want to be able to take for granted.

They need to at the very worst, disappear in our experience of a product. At best, add joy to the product experience. Neither of which is the case with this software.

Despite absolutely loving the speakers themselves, I am reluctant to recommend them due to the software insufficiencies.

When these are overcome, I will gladly proclaim to the world that these are some of the best values in modern audio. Because I believe they can be.

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Did anyone actually “brick” the speakers? Bricking to me is an unrecoverable event. Messing up the firmware update and being able to redo and recover, to me, is not creating a brick.

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@bearFNF, @woodford stated that after multiple attempts KEF is replacing the speakers.

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yes, i did.

If I am not mistaken both of the bricked speakers came about as a result of the Mac Updater. I have said this before. KEF really great at making speakers. Not so great at software.

Yep.The thought of having to download an updater… its pretty unusual these days when it’s seemingly straight forward to push out updates without needing such messing around. Suffice to say I have not done it once yet and I’ve had them a month.

I too am extremely fond of the hardware. Fab in my kitchen which has arguably taken the role of my fave place in the house to play music. Vs a more expensive separates rig in my office.

Ok, I must have missed that. Too bad that it is not better.

Kefs now work directly from Roon :-). Sounds great.

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Many of us have been saying this for almost a year.

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Jon I’m a longtime IT guy too and I have also been saying this reeks of outsourced development. A real give away are obvious misspellings in some of the documentation.

Yesssss ! Bye bye Sonore UPNP Bridge :grinning: Very interested how it was implemented… Many thanx Roon/KEF team :+1:

Bricked speakers. Mac Update. Calling Mike first thing in the morning. Expecting my speakers will need replacing. Once replaced, probably going up for sale. Digital speakers are ALL about the software…and the Kef software is a JOKE.

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KEF needs to pull that Mac Updater and fix it before anyone else bricks a pair of speakers. If you have a Mac please don’t use the current Mac updater from KEF until they fix this.

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