Thanks very much for the heads-up, I hadn’t found this when I Googled whether the issue had been resolved earlier. Well, seems like I’m looking into this at the right time and this puts them firmly back on the radar. Really good KEF finally did the right thing.
Since this is no longer an issue, could I ask whether anyone has these working in a 5.1 setup (assuming one were to buy enough LS50IIs)? E.g., if I were to use a surround processor, can one feed the outputs to the digital inputs of the 50IIs, or has this got to be done in pairs, so L+R pair, Centre+Sub, RL+RR, etc. Or is there something precluding this kind of use?
James, I briefly looked into this when purchasing my LS50W2s and quickly concluded that operating LS50W2s in a 5.1 setup just isn’t a practical option and that there are better alternatives if you wish to go down that route. There are surround processors that will output digital signals in stereo pairs (FL, FR), (RL, RR), (CEN, SUB) so you could in principle get an input to each 5.1 channel provided you carefully selected the processor. But system controllability is a real challenge. How are you going to control the system’s volume, which basically needs to happen wirelessly using the speakers’ wireless platform? AFAIK you cannot group the speakers as a 5.1 system so the pairs of speakers will present as mutliple zones in the KF Connect App, Roon or whatever you are using (you can’t put a preamplifier upstream of the KEFs and use that to control volume). So you would need to adjust each pair’s volume individually, which is going to get very unwieldy! Same goes for EQ and tonal balance. The platform is just not designed to operate in a 5.1 format.
The other point I should have made was that even if you were able to build a 5.1 system it will be the antithesis of anything “wireless”. Each speaker would need a power cable; each speaker would have an input cable. There would thus be double the number of cables that you’d have in a conventional passive setup! That might not be a concern for you but worth considering.
Thank you Ben, most helpful and saves me a lot of wasted time trying to find out if this is viable (which I agree it’s not). Kef, any chance of firmware allowing this (you’d sell more speakers!).
Happy to see the new KEF firmware, but now I have lost the blue power icon above the volume slider in Roon on my iPad.
This is important to me because I am using an extension, DrCWO’s rooDial, which used to allow me to put my LS50W2s into Standby w a long press on a Microsoft Surface Dial used as a volume controller. DrCWO tells me that without that blue power icon, his rooDial Standby feature is no longer supported.
Are my LS50W2s no longer Roon ready? I plan to contact both KEF and Roon.
I was told to check the KEF app setting speaker preferences/standby- just need to make sure to have it enabled; choose ECO, 30, or 60, do not select NEVER
(Almost) same problem, even with stanby mode is ECO. Get “unknown filter” in the signal path where it was upsampled to 192Khz (cable mode)
Problem is only on Ipad (pro), not on Iphone or windows, the signal path now shows “Wired connection 192KHz 24 bit”??? (Of course for every album)
On Ipad :
In Windows (or Iphone (13)) :
