Only problem with your novel is that for many months before this Roon has been telling manufacturers like KEF not to do this and that they will be stopping uncertified Roon products from working at all. Also a while before September they told them about this deadline. Seems KEF and some others chose to ignore these warnings probably because they thought they were nearly there and would get certification soon, However on testing the product Roon found problems and denied certification and KEF has not yet been able to fix these problems.
For those who think Roon has to do things to fix these problems see this.
Updates to Roonās SDK to support new hardware are rare and of course Roon and RAAT are not updated to support new hardware or we would be getting updates very few weeks.
The dealer specifically said āhardwareā, but I would also assume there would be a firmware change to go with it. The situation is clearly a mess, with growing frustration worldwide. The lack of a statement from KEF doesnāt helpā¦
How these changes would be implemented and charged is another matter.
As it turns out KEF USA actually has a Customer Service number. I am going to call them on Monday and either register a complaint or at least try to find out their plan. It would be great if other owners and potential owners did the same.
Firstly - just want to confirm that there is no need for any hardware updates - we chose the internals in part for Roon Ready implementation. So there is no need to worry there - seems like a dealer misspoke and meant to say firmware.
In regards to how far down the path we are - weāre getting close. Seems like weāre in the final stages - I have it working on my desktop pair in the office - streaming absolutely spot on, even in this office network environment (you can imagine how many networks we have around the place here). Really now just working alongside Roon to iron out the final bits and pieces.
I know I havenāt given a date - Iād love to, I just donāt have one. But hopefully this small update will give a little bit more clarity.
Ben, thanks for the update, I have a slightly different question, is there a LS50 W2 specific implementation for KC62 sub, or is it just considered an āall arounderā for KEF bookshelf size speakers, (or other manufacturers bookshelf for that matter), Iām NOT talking about capabilities but rather intentions, was it conceived as a complement to LS50 series? Thanks.
My brain is basically full of KC62 right now because Iāve been writing the white paper for it with the R&D team - should be online soon!
The way we do subs now is as a separate family of ranges, rather than lumped with the main speaker ranges like we used to (Q Series used to have a āone size fits all subā, as did R Series etc).
Depending on what youāre actually wanting to achieve and what your situation is, you can pretty much use any KEF sub with any KEF speaker - room size and expectation will be the thing that dictates final choice more. So for example, a Kube 8b might be a great choice for somebody to extend say, a Q150, or it might be a great choice for someone with a Q550 to get a bass boost, if thatās what theyāre looking for. KF92 sells really well as a pair with Blade Twos, but also works really nicely with R Series and larger Q floorstanders. KC62 has amazing response and output for the size, but someone may favour sheer output, so may go for a Kube 12
We didnāt want people to feel locked in to a specific sub, so we wanted to give a variety. If that makes sense, this seems very stream of consciousness Everybodyās different. But the constant is that we treat the subs in the same way as our main loudspeakers - because a subwoofer is a loudspeaker, after all.
Specifically with LS, KUBE works great. KC62 and KF92 are better performers in terms of speed, depth and detail - think the jump from Q Series to R Series.
I had seen the KEF announcement about the new back-to-back drivers but then missed the release of the new products incorporating those so for me, a happy LS50w user who will probably upgrade to the v2s once Roon Ready is official and maybe also when issues that I read about with HDMI connectivity to Samsung TVs are worked out, the KC62 looks like a match made in heaven especially since my LS50s are white and that will become āmineral whiteā if/when I upgrade. It has infuriated me how few subwoofers offer a white option and has constrained my options for subs considerably since my LS50w are in a living room environment.
While I understand what you say about subs being separate ranges might I suggest a couple of ābridging solutionsā?
1 - Simplest - KEF I assume has comprehensive data on the frequency responses and roll offs of the LS50w (II) at various cutoff points for the sub settings and I assume also has good data for frequency response of its various subs. Now of course room effects play a part but as a potential customer I would find a white paper really useful that gave recommended high and low cutoff points to be set for the LS50w to give what KEF considered to be the best starting point for getting a well integrated match/handoff between a pair of LS50w and each of your various subs (with the KC62 of particular interest to me).
2 - Slightly more complicated - In setting up a pair of LS50w the KEF Connect app already collects at least a bit of info in the room and speaker placement (damped/lively, approx room size, distance from wall etc) so in the sub setting instead of a simple yes/no for sub connected you could offer a drop-down list that was either āno subā or āgeneric subā (equivalent to the sub yes/no options now) but that also has options for specific KEF subs such as KC62 such that if a KC62 was selected (for example) the app would automatically select what it thought were the right crossover frequencies, maybe modified slightly to reflect the room characteristics it had been told about, in order to give the best possible starting point for integrating that particular model of sub.
Of course as I mentioned above very specific room issues and sub positioning can mean that further tweaking is required but in particular 2 above could give people a much more informed starting point for an all KEF setup based on what you know about the acoustic properties of your speakers and for that part of your customer base that just wants plug and play and will never fine tune it will likely improve their integration when using a specific KEF sub vs the simple yes/no option for whether the customer has a sub or not.
But the starting point I use, as suggested by one of our engineers for KC62/LS50W2 is 40Hz for LPF, 75Hz for HPF, sub gain at -3dB for one KC62, Max volume on the subās own volume dial and LFE mode.
Thanks also for the advice, really helpful but it raises another couple of questions.
1 - Iām probably going to go for a dual sub setup to reduce room modes so what gain is suggested for that?
2 - Does the KC62 have auto standby? Iām using a pair of cheap B&W 8ā subs at the moment which actually arenāt at all bad given the pair are less than half the price of a KC62 but Iām sure your wonderful product will be a quantum leap in quality. One thing I did notice on my B&Ws though is that when I cranked the volume up on the amps in the subs and adjusted by reducing the sub output on my LS50w it resulted in the B&Ws not always seeing a high enough input signal to come out of standby or sometimes mid album if there was a quiet track with little low frequency they would even put themselves back into standby (I donāt play my music particularly loud). Iām wondering what the situation with a KC62 on -3dB gain would be if the KC62 has auto standby.
KC62 does have auto standby. In terms of the threshold, even at -6dB when I use two KC62s, there hasnāt been a point where itās jumped out at me that they hadnāt switched on yet. Possibly has to do with having the LPF quite low, as there is probably more likely to be slightly higher frequencies present beforehand above the 40Hz mark (as the LPF is not a brick wall filter) which will trigger the sub to wake up.
This isnāt an LS50W thing though, itās the subwoofer threshold. The good thing about the fact that Iām setting the KC62 to max volume, and to -3dB in the app is, if I were to find a noticeable lack of turning on, thereās 13dB worth of gain in the app left over, and plenty of volume dial on the sub to bring it down accordingly, so you increase the signal going in, but compensate for that with the subās onboard control.
Iām about to buy LS20 WII, but Iām looking for a solution to using in Home Theater as well.
Iām using projector but those donāt have ARC or eARC ports. My video player donāt have audio output so I need to use hdmi for Audio which means I need kind of adapter. The only one working known to me solution is HD Fury Arcana but it is very pricy at $199 and is overkiller for me as I donāt need Dolby Atmos.
Do you know any other working solution. Maybe @Ben_Hagens could help with it.
TIA.
Iāve only had a cursory look through the specs of that Arcana - Iām not 100% sure it will work, as I canāt see if it will allow you to set the audio output as 2.0 PCM. That is a requirement, as LS50WII wonāt decode Dolby/DTS/Bitstream.
What you need to be looking for is one that does have that option, or a HDMI audio de-embedder like so:
This takes the HDMI output of your disc player, and then splits the video off to your projector via HDMI, and the audio via optical. This one has a switch to set 2.0 PCM. I havenāt tried this first hand, but all signs points to that this particular one should work.
Unfortunately, HDMI de-embedders are hovering around the price of that Arcana as well.
Thank you @Ben_Hagens for the information. My player has option to downmix multichannel to 2.0 PCM. I will probably try some chinese box which has hdmi input and both hdmi and SPDIF output.
Everybodyās different. But the constant is that we treat the subs in the same way as our main loudspeakers - because a subwoofer is a loudspeaker, after all.