Poll of Kef LS50 Wireless owners

Hi,
Have just had to send my speakers back to Kef. I got a loud popping noise in the left hand speaker. The right still works fine but does not connect to the left now - think it is prob blown but no idea why.

Sorry to hear this Iain. How long had you been using them before they developed a fault?

5 months. Absolutely love the speakers and no indication of a fault up to this point. In all fairness Kef were very responsive, but maybe that is because they are aware there are issues with the speakers. As someone mentioned previously it is concerning - when the 1 year warranty runs out will Kef be as responsive and no doubt I will have to foot the bill if there are further issues.

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I just got a pair of them today. Is there an easy way to tell their production date or which batch they came from?

(Also, holy cow were people not joking when they said the crappiness of the remote is in shocking contrast to the speakers themselves. that remote is a straight up piece of garbage)

The production date is on the outside of the box.

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Ah-hah. June 2017. So let’s see if they worked out the kinks with these more recent production batches. At least it took the firmware update with no problems.

I was hearing that over and over again when my replacement speakers started having issues.

One would hope they have. My replacements were made in Dec 2016 just like my original ones.

So I just got done demoing my KEFs at my mother’s house and she just bought her own pair, LOL. we’ll see if her new Kefdirect speakers have any issues. What have I gotten myself into? Hopefully it will not cause us heartache…

She really liked ROON also, but canceled her trial until I can train her in it’s use. she tried but it confused the heck out of her, she has been using windows media player for years…

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Just bought a pair of LS50 wireless yesterday and so far no problems–but I did not see this thread until just now. Hope I don’t have an issue. Am I the only dolt who did not realize Roon will not see these speakers as an endpoint unless you connect to your network via ethernet cable? I assumed, being Wireless, I could connect to my network wirelessly and use Roon. No. I had to plug my MacBook Pro into the USB slot and get Roon to show up that way. I don’t have hardwire ethernet in the room where I am using the KEFs.

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@Sarah_Clement

Just a thought - have you looked into using Powerline ethernet adapters? You may already know what they are but essentially you plug one in your wall socket (somewhere near the KEFs) and the other one close to your home modem/router. This creates an ethernet network over your mains power. You can then use a short ethernet cable to your KEFs and likewise a short ethernet cable to your router. You can then use Roon Remote as usual.

Incidentally, what are you running the Roon server on?

Hardware reliability has been an issue with KEFs. I am hopeful that they’ve fixed one of the perennial problems of a ‘system failure’ occurring when coming out of standby with the latest firmware.

But still, you now have a fantastic sound system - enjoy!

Thanks for suggestion about the power line plugs. I will dig up a couple I once used with my Squeezeboxes. Just checked my box, my LS50W were fabricated July 2017. I bought from my local dealer and will save the box in case mine have problems. They sound great right out of the box.
I have my Core running on a Small Green Computer Sonic Transporter i5 purchased last winter. Love this box, it has performed flawlessly.

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They work as an endpoint over wireless. No ethernet cable required. Do you have the latest firmware installed?

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@Sarah_Clement Odd. I don’t see why there’d be any difference whether the KEFs were networked wireless vs wired. I feel like they should work either way. I’ll give it a shot when I’m home later.

Could be a problem with your network configuration, if your wireless and wired network are not set up to “talk” to each other. If you can give us some idea of your network device setup that might lead to a realization.

We are definitely able to use the LS50W speakers over wireless networks with no hardwired ethernet cable attached. Are you able to see the speakers in KEF’s mobile app?

You may also need to do some setup in the KEF app for things like wifi network passwords, the KEF app should lead you through that process if necessary.

The other thing I would check is, what input mode are the speakers set to? They need to be manually switched into “wifi” mode before they will work with Roon, the display on the top of the right speaker should be showing the wifi icon with the concentric arcs.

I will see if I left something undone in the KEF app. I was using the wireless input but Roon never saw my speakers. As for latest firmware I have Mac and it looks like the firmware download for Mac OS is not available.
EDIT: it was unavailable last night, this morning there is a Mac download available. I will update the firmware and see what happens.

The firmware update via my Mac did the trick. Roon now sees my LS50 speakers.
But now I can’t group the speakers with any other zone. Using the MacBook Pro to connect to LS50 via USB I could group them into other zones.

The KEF will not be able to be grouped with other zones when used as an endpoint, that is the drawback to using KEF as endpoint. I use a RPi with hat to feed the KEF when I want to play to the KEF and group to other zones.

LOL, my mom just got her KEF, she has been texting me all day with updates on the UPS truck. the guys came in the dark, and has three more hours to go for his deliveries, he is running real late.

She also just bought lifetime ROON, she changed her mind and decided the little bit she could usr it that it was something she wanted to learn. So next she is going to start re-ripping all her CD’s to lossless format (FLAC) instead of the mp3/wma windows media mess she has now.

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Very hip mom…

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