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KEF LS60 Wireless Just Announced
- Thread starter ThELiZ
- Start date
Then you must already be listening through a phenomenal system, or how could you tell?
That's a valid reason for asking. Not many others left.
Im listening with my HD800S And i can certainly tell when i hear system that is great.
From youtube demos this LS60 is more impressive to me than Even Reference line up.
Clarity, cohesion, imaging, depth and bass sounds so good.
I expect Reference line up to take over this at loud wolumes.
I wish Kef considers Blade standmount passive speaker.
Thats the only thing missing in their lineup.
I feel Kef ref 1 meta is competitor to Sopra 1, but Focal Diablo Utopia dont have competitor from Kef...
Standmount Blade could be the one...
Thats the only thing missing in their lineup.
I feel Kef ref 1 meta is competitor to Sopra 1, but Focal Diablo Utopia dont have competitor from Kef...
Standmount Blade could be the one...
Even through the YouTube lossy compression? Really? Perhaps Amir should review that way.
I dont understand your comment? demos dont exist if you cant hear a difference...
You can believe what you want to believe i just expressed my impressions.
Demos exist to generate trade and income. I have myself listened to online demos and decided that a system sounded so much better than mine, until I reminded myself that what I was listening to WAS my system.
killdozzer
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Try harder! You didn't do it properly. You held back.
Vacceo
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Those LSX look like what my old Creative PC speakers from the 90`s wanted to be when they grow up.
And probably, they are excellent nearfield speakers for a small space.
You're asking for a scientific paper explaining my (rather mainstream science) statement and then base your point on some other manufacturer's white paper?
Let me start with pointing to KEF's LS60 WP then: https://assets.kef.com/product-support/ls60-wireless/LS60W_Whitepaper.pdfFigure 3 on page 4 shows a simulation of on-axis response of a 4" driver in cubes of different sizes. Note how the undesirable effects diminish with smaller cabinet sizes.
The "baffle step" or "diffraction loss" is actually the lesser problem. It's relatively easy to compensate for, in particular with an active design. The ripple (usually) introduced by sharp edges and the associated effects on the polar response are the true enemies. One solution to this are generously rounded edges as found in the LS1 (or e.g. Blades or LS50), but it's not the only way. Both effects are caused by the same physical phenomenon (the way sound waves propagate around obstacles) but it makes sense to differentiate between the two. Take e.g. a fully spherical enclosure with a "small" driver mounted to it. No sharp edges at all, no ripple, but still it exhibits the ~6 dB baffle step. This is not the place to go too much into all the details but my scientific reference for these issues is the late Siegfried Linkwitz. Does it get much more scientific?
Bruno Putzeys surely is one of the most respected developers in the audio industry and nobody will contradict his ideas lightheartedly. In fact, I don't. I explicitly don't even dispute that very well sounding speakers can be build using wide baffles. It's just not the most common way to do it and not so because all others are just clueless idiots. As always it's a matter of compromises and each solution brings its own drawbacks and technical problems. Again, I confess that small baffles impose their own problems but that doesn't mean that wider baffles don't nor that they are the one and only solution. Bruno Putzeys seems to agree on this. Otherwise his work for Kii Audio would not have resulted in a narrow baffle speaker (with a lot of extra trickery, I know): https://www.kiiaudio.com/kii_three.php
Very narrow baffles are not only chosen for looks and KEF took this approach to a new level with LS60 Wireless, at least as far as their own portfolio is concerned. The Uni-Q driver and Single Apparent Source configuration are helpful here. Finally I want to point out that KEF has not officially published detailed information about the crossover frequencies, yet. So far we all came to think that the lower crossover point is probably around 390 Hz because this frequency is mentioned as a side note in one sentence in the LS60 Wireless white paper. They have not revealed filter slopes and characteristics or the HF crossover point.
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Hi Harkpabst,You're asking for a scientific paper explaining my (rather mainstream science) statement and then base your point on some other manufacturer's white paper?
Figure 3 on page 4 shows a simulation of on-axis response of a 4" driver in cubes of different sizes. Note how the undesirable effects diminish with smaller cabinet sizes.
View attachment 207055
The "baffle step" or "diffraction loss" is actually the lesser problem. It's relatively easy to compensate for, in particular with an active design. The ripple (usually) introduced by sharp edges and its associated effects on the polar response is the true enemy. One solution to this are generously rounded edges as found in the LS1 (or e.g. Blades or LS50), but it's not the only way. Both effects are caused by the same physical phenomenon (the way sound waves propagate around obstacles) but it makes sense to differentiate between the two. Take e.g. a fully spherical enclosure with a "small" driver mounted to it. No sharp edges at all, no ripple, but still it exhibits the ~6 dB baffle step. This is not the place to go too much into all the details but my scientific reference for these issues is the late Siegfried Linkwitz. Does it get much more scientific?
Bruno Putzeys surely is one of the most respected developers in the audio industry and nobody will contradict his ideas lightheartedly. In fact, I don't. I explicitly don't even dispute that very well sounding speakers can be build using wide baffles. It's just not the most common way to do it and not so because all others are just clueless idiots. As always it's a matter of compromises and each solution brings its own drawbacks and technical problems. Again, I confess that small baffles impose their own problems but that doesn't mean that wider baffles don't nor that they are the one and only solution. Bruno Putzeys seems to agree on this. Otherwise his work for Kii Audio would not have resulted in a narrow baffle speaker (with a lot of extra trickery, I know): https://www.kiiaudio.com/kii_three.php
Very narrow baffles are not only chosen for looks and KEF took this approach to a new level with LS60 Wireless, at least as far as their own portfolio is concerned. The Uni-Q driver and Single Apparent Source configuration are helpful here. Finally I want to point out that KEF has not officially published detailed information about the crossover frequencies, yet. So far we all came to think that the lower crossover point is probably around 390 Hz because this frequency is mentioned as a side note in one sentence in the LS60 Wireless white paper. They have not revealed filter slopes and characteristics of the HF crossover point.
The MF/HF crossover frequency is around 3.1kHz.
All drivers have 4th order electrical filters applied, except the HPF on the MF, which is 3rd order. The different order on the mid is due to the acoustical response beginning to roll off near crossover. This means that it behaves (a little) like a 1st order filter. The addition of the 3rd order electrical filter to the 1st order acoustic filter results in a 4th order response that matches the LF (at least, over the crossover band).
In terms of filter characteristics, none of them could be described as "classical". This is due to subtle EQ being applied to the drivers around the crossover region to improve the consistency of the directivity.
Vacceo
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Thanks for posting the video filmed in Barcelona. Turns out that Francisco del Pozo, a wannabe Darko was there. It´s always good to see what the enemies are doing...
That video led me to think, if the LSX are next, will it be safe to assume the new version will share the uniq array with the LS60? Just in video they look very similar.
That video led me to think, if the LSX are next, will it be safe to assume the new version will share the uniq array with the LS60? Just in video they look very similar.
Thanks for clarification, @AOR. I like what I hear (or rather read). That MF/HF crossover point says something about the qualities of the new 4" Uni-Q. The normalized dispersion plots and DI plots don't give the slightest hint towards the crossover point, impressive. And without having heard those speakers yet I'm totally sure those tweeters won't show any dynamic compression. Nice!
I don't think so. Same reasoning as here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ess-just-announced.33705/page-40#post-1186376
LSX needs a real mid-woofer. I doubt the decoupled magnet would make sense when the driver is operated down below its resonance frequency. Different requirements for the surround as well. Even if the LS60 Wireless Uni-Q midrange has been designed with increased excursion this will hardly suffice for that matter.
Vacceo
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So the LSX is closer to an LS50 array, but in a smaller size.
Speaking with the accumulated authority of a person not associated with KEF or GP in any way: Yes.
Edit:
We did not even talk costs here. The basket material will probably be different, too. It will be interesting to see if the Metamaterial Absorption Technology still makes it into LSX II. Unless this has already been answered somewhere (so any guessing would be pointless) my personal guess would be: Absolutely.
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"From youtube videos"?? You realize how flawed youtube audio is? I am no advocate of "it must always be high rez!", but youtube is a notch below everything audio-wise. Fun because you get to see videos... but yeah, don't use it to test reference speakers...
Youtube audio cannot possibly ever be an audio reference. Nor can it help you hear differences between resolving gear.
Having done the design work on this, putting it in everything as it's refreshed is a no-brainer.
Although I was interested to see that the LS60 version is just a scaled down version, with exactly the same pattern as far as I can see. Not too much new work involved there.
So that in turn means it's handling a higher set of frequencies - it starts at 840Hz rather than 620Hz.
Having some vague recollection of a KEF lecture about the MAT, there's actually a bunch of issues about acoustic impedance matching with the connecting duct, and that determines the starting frequency for the MAT.
It's not because you need to be suppressing as low as 620Hz or 840Hz from the tweeter, but that's the tuning for the MAT that lets it seamlessly extend the duct, avoiding the duct/MAT interface generating its own duct-length reflection.
So I guess you can just scale the whole MAT up or down to match the duct size. (The duct's conical cross-section shape is also crucial).
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