As I’ve mentioned on these forums I am attempting a dialogue with Kef via. my dealer on the cause of failure of my LS50 Wireless a few weeks ago. Judging by the experiences of others here I am not an isolated case. Therefore I thought it would be interesting/useful to do a quick poll of users on here with the following question:
Do you own a pair of KEF LS50 Wireless speakers?
Have you had any faults or problems with them? Is so please briefly state the nature of the problem.
Please could you reply even if you haven’t had any problems! I want to get an idea of the ratio of normal v faulty.
I will pass this onto KEF here in the UK (again via. My dealer who seems to have a solid, respectful relationship with them).
Rik I have owned a pair of the LS50W since March and have not had any issues. I did think I bricked my pair with the last Mac Updater but I was able to recover mine by reapplying the update before KEF support could even call me back so count me as an owner without any issues…yet.
Have not had issue updating from my Win10 laptop.
I have had two or three instances where music would not play after having switched sources. Usually from optical to Aux. The solution is to restart the speakers.
I have also had a few instances of the source/bluetooth lights blinking. Again just restarting the speakers fixed it.
Good call doing the survey.
I bought mine in January and they started failing around 8 months in. Right speaker heavy static and buttons on top flashing. This was well after the first firmware update and I have done two Mac firmware updates without issue.
Kef immediately said send them in and we will send brand new replacements. It cost me $100 to ship them. Total time without speakers was about three weeks. They shipped the new ones a few days after UPS showed them receiving the old ones. They ignored most of my e-mailed questions with no reply.
Some of us will be coming up on a year so what happens if a speaker fails and its out of warranty. I bought mine with a credit card that extends the warranty but that will be a hassle.
I enjoy the heck out of these especially with the Roon update which is just great but I still wonder when I will hear that static again…
No problem with the hardware as yet. Really enjoy the speakers both from a SQ perspective as well as the streamlined hardware design.
Totally exasperated with the firmware update process. Sooo clunky as to be unbelievable for such a cutting edge product this day and age.
For general UI I note the new Chord Poly comes with no in house software and they’ve obviously recognised the cost and complexity and decided to leave it up to user choice and to providers such as Roon that know how to do it best. Surely the way forward in general though doesn’t help with firmware process.
I am concerned about their longevity but wonder if the relatively small number of prolific posters like those on this forum (including me) that have raised issues are making this whole thing look a lot worse than it actually is.
Have owned LS50w for a few weeks and have not had a serious problem. Have applied the latest update (went smoothly) and use Roon/Tidal/FLAC primarily, over Ethernet. Have also used Logitech Transporter / optical without problems.
A few minor / glitchy type problems like they go to standby even when being played but really nothing noteworthy.
It’s supposed to go into standby when not playing. There is a sequence that allows the speakers to stay on all the time. I forget how but I did do it to mine.
@John_Aiello over the weekend I followed the instructions for setting the speakers to never go into standby (I really don’t see the point), but it doesn’t seem to have worked. Maybe I did it wrong and I’ll try again this week.
@Jonny Well to be fair and to clarify a bit, it’s possible the app stops playing then the speakers go on Standby. This has happened a few times while I wasn’t paying close attention or had left home for a bit.
I’ve had a few cases where Pandora or Roon or whatever stops playing even though on loop or Radio and shouldn’t. In which case the speakers probably think nothing’s happening and eventually go into standby.
However I tried following the instructions to turn standby off altogether (I don’t see the point, just let them stay on, how much power could they draw really), but it hasn’t worked, the speakers still go standby. I’ll have to troubleshoot that process this week.
There are some erronious instructions posted out there. If I name the guy that posted them he will have a hissy fit. The first time I tried it didn’t work also. I found that the instructions were backward. I can’t find the correct ones at this stage since I did it weeks ago.
The purpose of doing it for me at least is because I use these speakers in my home office and from time to time I stop listening because of conference calls or phone calls and when I come back to it I want the speakers to be active and on rather than have shut down. I do shut them down at the end of the work day.
