KEF Reference 1s or LS50s

My vote goes to the LS50 as the speaker I would rather listen to.  I owned a pair and loved them.  
I spent an afternoon listening to a pair of REF 1s.  Beautiful speaker, disappointing sound.  

I have heard the Ref 1 sound awful and also brilliant. The difference was the rooms. Actually my LS50 sounded awful in my small room until I got it treated by GIK. In my treated room, the Ref 1 wound be an improvement for my sub less LS50 system.

If you cannot tell which you prefer in your own system and room, then you have a problem no one is going to be able to help you with.

FWIW I have the LS50s in my office setup and auditioned the Ref 1s before purchasing the LS50s. The law of diminishing returns was clear to me during the comparo, and in my second system that made the decision to buy the LS50s easy.

In my main system however the Ref 1 would have been the easy choice as I listen to that rig often at high volume with experimental instrumental compositions including ambient electronica - the only standmount I have heard that I prefer to the Ref 1 for my tastes in volume/genre for around the same money is the Totem Fire V2.

I second the magico A1 they are incredible and better the ref 1 in every way imo.