KEF LS50 or Wharfedale Reva 2 -- which would you buy?

Ok, so I went and listened to the R3’s tonight on a $1000 denon (90watts), a $2200 Arcam, and a $5500 Mac.  They sounded decent on the Mac and that was it.  The room was awful, they weren’t set up properly or broken in so that all plays a big role.

Thing is, I think they are the same as LS50’s in that they need lots of good, clean (usually expensive) power.

I have heard both the dynaudio excites and PSB Imagines and both sounded great.  I’d be willing to bet that either of those would sound better with your amp.  The Kefs of course will sound amazing, perhaps better, but not with anything less than $2-3k in the front end (my guess).

Dynaudio is awesome.  The Excite series is when they start sounding really good.  The drivers and cabinets are top notch and built in house. 

Those PSB’s are the least exotic or boutique of the speakers I mentioned but they are still built like tanks, and are built in Canada. None of the speakers I recommended were built in china by the way.  These PSB’s may actually sound best with your denon because they are more than likely the easiest and most efficient of the speakers I mentioned.

Totems, again are great!  Crazy good imaging and tone, and again, built in Canada.  The cabinets are built exceptionally well and the drivers are sourced from reputable, high end companies.

And last but not least, PBN are great speakers built by a great builder as well who’s been in the industry forever and is super knowledgeable as well as easy to get ahold of if you ever need support.

I usually look at where the speakers are made, how the cabinets are constructed, what drivers are used (seas, vifa, morel, scan speak, dynaudio, raal, etc), crossover componets...  I tend to like danish, british and canadian speaker builders along with some here in the U.S. also (pbn, tyler acoustics, nola, vapor, ryan?, joseph audio, just to name a few).  

Many of the top companies will use drivers from the same manufacturer built to custom specs and implemented in unique ways dependant upon crossovers and enclosures / driver layouts.  Its nice though when you can land a pair of bookshelf speakers for $800-$1200 that uses seas excel drivers or the like.  

Here are my two cents:

I own LS50s for three years and I’ve never heard the Revas but I’ve heard other Wharfedale’s models and other speakers that employ woven kevlar or carbon fibre and they all had two very characteristic colorations that I didn’t like. They exhibit to a degree cupped hand coloration and there is something I call Kevlar hash convoluted in the sound that I simply call the "hghhh". It’s some sort of graininess that makes the sound too analytical, very detailed but accents seem to be uneven to the extent that some of them interrupt your listening experience. Like a snare that’s way too forward and out of balance or a stringed instrument with too pronounced body. A very projected and in your face sound.
Some, like B&W couple these with first (electrical order) crossovers crossed way too high and further add to problems caused by uneven dispersion, like small sweet spot (lobing), dependency on treated rooms and increased honkynes (suckouts away from the sweet spot).
Unfortunately there is a growing trend in employing first order crossovers even in entry to mid-level products simply because of reduced costs. First order designs require extremely well behaved drivers and still require trade-offs.

It is exactly the reason I parted with these designs. I ended up with KEF LS50s with which I am quite happy, but they are not perfect either. Here’s my summary:

Pros:
- Very neutral sounding. Not forward, not laid-back, right in the middle
- Extremelly well designed mechanically and electrically, very decent 2nd order crossover
- There is nothing to irritate you with any kind of music
- Vocals to die for, very smooth, very detailed and very natural sounding
- Great imaging and sound stage
- Very even sound when listened from any angle. You could enjoy them for casual listening way off axis, do something else and still be surprised with stereo and feeling of space
- Very detailed but never irritating.
- Very transparent. You will hear amplifier differences easily, I even heard differences rolling op-amps in my amplifier. But I wouldn’t agree that they are very hard to drive. I even drove them with an ancient Marantz integrated with 40 Watts@8 Ohms and it was still very pleasing experience only not so transparent
- Bass is actually not bad, there is sufficient extension and the bass is very tight and defined. KEF engineers didn’t employ any midbass humps to cheat on the bass perception.

Cons:
- A bit tipped-down highs for my age
- They want to be pushed to sing at their best. If you mostly listen to low/night levels, you would need a loudness control on your amp.
- Can be tiny bit shouty in upper midrange/lower highs with some music. People say it depends on the amp, but my gut feeling is this is due to the twitter waveguide.
- If you want rock and very low frequency, pair them with a subwoofer
- Overall sound weight depends on room size and placement. They strangely disperse deep bass, and you will hear plenty of it sideways in your room but you have to play with distance from rear wall to maximize bass at your listening position.
- If you are like me and prefer a bit of mid-bass hump and a bit of plumminess, you will not be able to fully fix this with a sub-woofer. These guys ask for a three way design with woofers, not subwoofers.
- In my opinion, these speakers could work great with a pair of capable subwoofers and a preamp/integrated with sub output that can offload LS50s from bass completelly (like 200Hz down).

A note on LS50W and R300. I’ve auditioned both of them and had very high expectations of the LS50W that I was ready to sell the passives and upgrade to the actives without even listening.
I think that the superiority of the LS50w is a hyperbole. I heard nothing of it on my listening test. Ok, they were not broken-in, but two things were instantly apparent to me. They sounded more constricted, less open (transparent if you wish) and boxy sounding then the passives. I wish I was wrong about this and still have a small reservation due to not being broken-in and the listening environment, but I didn’t have a chance for a second audition yet.

I auditioned the R300 before buying the LS50s. This is an easy listening speaker, well balanced and also devoid of obvious colorations. The bass is abundant and fuller than the LS50s, but would still benefit from subs. It is from my memmory, midrange laid-back compared to LS50s so they will not give you goosebumps as much the LS50s would on vocals and brass instruments, but they will reward you with less pickyness about the source quality or a recording that is natively bass shy and you would spend more hours in casual listening with R300s.

R300 and LS50 are similar speakers but LS50 is a step above in build, finish, refinement and transparency. The last will give you more options to experiment with other components and tailor your own sound signature.
If you want to play on the safe side, use no subs and use your existing amp, R300 is a very competent speaker.

If I upgrade, I would again be KEF, I wish there is LS55 or LS60 with a a dedicated woofer!

And to add to the MOnitor Audio Silver comparison, I brought the LS50 at my friend’s who has Silver Line floorstander and we concluded LS50 sounded clearer and more transparent in the mids.

I have a smallish room (12x14) that's also a bit odd shaped.  My biggest issue has been with REAR ported speakers.  I owned the Kef LS50 speakers for about a year.  I tried to like them!  Wanted to like them and in fact liked some aspects (nice sweet highs!) - But could never tame that low-end port-itis!  It drove me crazy trying to mitigate the issue!  I'm also a drummer of over 50 years, so the LS50's never seemed to give me the kind of energy that I heard playing live / not real!
I had a pair of Polk Lsi9's several years back AND finally found another pair to give them another go in my room.  This was a great move as I like them so much better - true they are rear ported, but they have the power port system that mitigates much of the issue.  Note:  they are very difficult to find used as owners seldom want to sell them.
Polk also has the beautiful LSiM 703 largish bookshelves that my friend has and they are killer!   Rear port issues may occur in a small room with those so keep that in mind. 

Another speaker: sounds excellent are B&W CDM 1SE - good luck!  dumbe

I have no experience with the Kef speakers but do own the Wharfedale Reva 4..I would definitely give the Reva's a try. The build quality is second to none and I really am enjoying my Reva 4's..They are totally different sound than I'm used to and yes they are not an exciting sound.. They just sound great! On anything I throw at them..They do not colour the sound at all or add anything. I just came back from a friend's who was running ATC active 50's and I was enjoying the sound out of my Reva's just as much..(not saying the Reva's are as good or better than ATC).. I think the Reva's just got missed... With all the great speakers out there. I am powering them with a California Audio Labs mca 2500 and they handle the power great which I was afraid wouldn't .. For the price alone give them a try !!!!!