OK, I've had a full week with the KEF KC62 subwoofer now. The rest of my system is a Rangarok-2 amplifier, Rega Planar 1 Plus turntable, and KEF LS50 Meta speakers.
My taste in music is somewhat eclectic: I listen to a lot of jazz and big band now, along with an enduring enjoyment of mainstream pop/rock (Elvis Costello, Beatles, etc.) and of classical music up through the Romantic period.
Before describing my experience and impressions so far, I want to make it clear that I am not an audiophile and do not consider myself to have a very discriminating ear. This might understandably make what I have to say of little interest to many of you.
- As already noted, just getting the KEF KC62 to activate and do its thing with the Schiit amplifier was a puzzler. Turns out this is a non-intuitive setting on the Schiit, requiring that speaker mode AND headphone mode both be "on" in order for the connection between the Ragnarok-2 pre-outs and the KC62 to be live.
- Once this was done, I suddenly had a very sensitive and punchy bass presence in anything I put on. There are 40 positions for volume on the KC62 (10 markings, 4 clicks within each group). I initially had it somewhere around 10 and it was way overpowering. I dialed it down to 4 and that was easily enough for the first few things I listened to. Over the course of several days I went up as high as 9 and seem to have settled in at 6. How much of this was the sub running in and how much of it was ME adapting to the fully-revealed bass in my records, I'm not sure. But at least in my early experience, the KC62 can deliver way more bass than I can ever anticipate using. And it's hard to imagine anyone running this very near to its enabled volume. There may well be reasons that I'm not aware of.
- The listening experience is fantastic. Satisfying. I would go so far as to say that the LS50 Metas WITHOUT the sub are not worth the price IMO. They are fine speakers, but the reason I was willing to spring for the sub was that the missing bottom in so many things was disappointing to me.
- As I experienced the bass levels in different recordings, I began to wonder if I would want/need to adjust the sub volume for each record. This was not a good feeling. I then read a thread here about this topic and felt more comfortable finding a "set it and forget it" volume. I'm not so finicky that I can't live with that. Or maybe every once in a while, for a certain song or record, I will crank up the sub a little. Whatever.
In sum, I am extremely pleased with what I have now. I might upgrade the cartridge on my turntable at some point. Aside from that, my only additional investments might be in modifications to the room I have the equipment in.
Here are the records that I listened to during this week of burn-in and testing:
- Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
- Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil
- John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
- Elvis Costello - This Year's Model
- The Beatles - Revolver
- Rickie Lee Jones - self-title debut
- Mahler - Fifth Symphony
- Ashkenazy/LSO - Rachmaninov Piano Concertos 1 and 2
- Count Basie - from The Greatest Jazz Recordings of All Time
- Frank Sinatra - Ring-a-Ding-Ding
- Linda Ronstadt - Simple Dreams
- Steely Dan - Aja
- Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
- Michael Johnson - There Is a Breeze
- Nat King Cole - The Very Thought of You
- Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
- Rubinstein/Wallenstein - Mozart Piano Concertos 21 and 23
