I’ve had the original LS50 for a couple years now and have wanted to compare them to the Meta ever since they were released. I use EQ to make them more neutral so I wasn’t expecting the meta to be much better but they do have better directivity and therefore are better to EQ. I see a lot of people asking about the originals vs the Meta so decided to write up a more detailed comparison than what I’ve seen done.
Setup:
As some may know, I compare speakers similar to the Harman method, 1 of each speaker in mono as this has been shown to be the easiest to discern differences and I agree after some past trials. I also cross them over at 100Hz and don’t use subs to focus on 100Hz and up. Normally I put both speakers directly in front of me but this time I put one of each on my normal stands to more closely simulate my roughly 15 degree listening angle. I use a windows PC as my source and have a program that allows me to instantly switch from left to right speaker. Here was my setup:
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LS50 vs LS50 Meta without EQ:
This was a quick and easy comparison, they sounded exactly like they measured. The LS50 were a bit hot in the highs and the Meta were neutral and maybe a bit laid back. In the short term I could see some preferring the original LS50’s highs but in the long term it is no contest that the Meta are the more neutral speaker and would be preferred by most people. Here are the Soundstage listening windows overlaid to show where the differences lie. LS50 in blue and meta is purple
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LS50 vs LS50 Meta with EQ:
This was much more interesting and the main reason I bought the Metas to try out. I use Equalizer APO with the Peace addon to apply parametric EQ filters to make the LS50 basically as good as they can get and wanted to see if and how much better the Metas could be with EQ since they do have better directivity. This comparison used the Soundstage anechoic measurements and EQ in REW to make them as neutral as I could get them, here are the before and after listening windows that show this, LS50 in blue and meta is purple.
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You can see that after EQ they are very similar but because the LS50 have an off-axis dip around 4k I was wondering if the Metas would have better highs despite the near identical listening window response. This wasn’t an easy comparison obviously since they are now almost the same speaker but I did hear some differences. I went back and forth, initially I felt they were very similar but the meta just sounded more clear but I found out that was just a trick with how the meta were voiced. Once I applied a high shelf to lower the output of the meta by 1db from 4k and up that went away and they were basically identical. I think the slight dip in the 2-3k region combined with a slight rise from 4k and up made them sound very clear but also crisp in the highs. I feel like both versions of the LS50 are sculpted to be generally neutral but they play tricks on you to sound more detailed in the highs, the Meta do a better job of this because they achieve it without being fatiguing over time.
Either way after swapping speaker positions from left to right and back they were basically indistinguishable to my ears. I tried convincing myself to keep the Meta but I really like the look of the black edition LS50 so that and the PITA of selling mine was enough to send the Meta back. I will say to anyone who doesn’t have the ability to apply PEQ filters, the Meta are amazing as is and definitely worth the upgrade over the original LS50, assuming you don’t like the extra energy in the 2-4k region. Despite the slightly different bass response in the Soundstage measurements, my in-room response was identical between the 2 and either pair greatly benefits from subs offloading the bass under 100Hz or so.