KEF ls50 meta’s are on the way

In today’s episode of my KEF ls50 saga....

I moved the old ls50s out and into my 3rd system in the next room. They were not going back in and thought I’d use them as an upgrade elsewhere in house if possible. They replace a pair of old Boston A40s I refurbed a couple years back there. The A40s are on the bench for now but still nice little speakers. The amp driving the old ls50s is a Fosi Class D integrated amp (with Bluetooth) about the size of a pack of cigarettes.....$80 on Amazon, ~ 40w/ch advertised. It uses a TI Class D chip and sounded very good with the Bostons, a steal for the cost. I wasn’t sure if it would be up to the task of driving ls50s but said hey lets give it a shot.....ls50s look way cooler than old 1980’s Boston Acoustics (no offense).

So that turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. The little amp exceeded my expectations by a fair amount. The ls50s look and sound very good in there. It’s a 2 channel A/V setup. Never used it much for music but might be tempted more now..

Meanwhile, no news with the Metas. I’ve had some challenging recordings on them that do not always shake out well when things are not going well and even they sound perhaps the best ever so far, at least on small monitors.

Good times!

I might do a custom paint job on my current Dynaudio stands to go better with the Titanium Grey Metas rather than spend money on new stands. The ones I have work well and no real need for another pair at the moment.

https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2020/12/17/review-kefs-ls50-meta-upgrades-an-audiophile-fave-to-near-...

Found this very good and thorough review today that really nails it and thought I’d share. 

A few additional comments:

1) I am running the KEFs as recommended in the manual with no toe in. Manual says to toe in 0-10 degrees. These are not intended to fire straight at you.
2) They are about 4’ from rear wall, 1/3 of way into room. No port plugs. Would want more bass reinforcement from walls if not for the sub.
3) I would strongly recommend the sub. With the sub these are hard to fault.
4) They bring out the best in each recording. Even the worst ones seem more listenable than before.
5) I agree with the article above. The ls50s could be a tad bright sometimes depending. They have a bit of an appealing shimmer to the sound. These do not. The measurements in the article indicated the only noticeable variation from a flat response is right at the frequency range where ears are most sensitive. That accounts for how easy on the ears these are.
6) Yet the detail is spectacular and with no brightness or fatigue. Soundstage and imaging uncanny.  These are very good low volume speakers as well.  I am not a fan of box speakers in general but these are the exception. KEF seems to have effectively conquered those issues in a reasonably cost effective manner. Will be interesting to see if/how the technical advances here trickle up the line over time. The competition better be on the ball!

FYI in addition to the new driver materials KEF have voiced the Metas significantly different than the original LS50s as shown in the measurement comparisons. 
They could have updated the crossovers in the original and improved the sound without doing anything else. 
  

Yes the metas are voiced much like the R3s which are awesome. Also more like my mainstay Ohms.