Its pretty much impossible to navigate an audiophile forum without somebody mentioning KEFs LS50 speakers within a few pages.
But if Im being honest, I never really loved them.
The new LS50 Meta fixes all that.
The company goes into detail about this in itswhitepaper, to clear results.
Its a truly impressive bit of engineering.
The Metas manual recommends listening to the speakers off-axis.
Thats present here too, and the Metas nicely balance soundstage width with spectacular imaging precision.
Despite their small size and 5-inch woofer, they also had better dynamics than I expected.
With a sub handling the lowest frequencies, differences compared to larger speakers become vanishingly small.
Lastly, I should note the LS50 Meta seemed to be exceptionally good at revealing details at low volumes.
The data
As usual, I listen before I perform speaker measurements.
But as well see, the data largely reinforces my listening impressions.
This single graph is usually enough to separate the good speakers from the bad ones.
Some people might not even mind this dip, as it affects the region where our earsare most sensitive.
But wait, theres more!
The Listening Window is a better representation of what you will be hearing.
This is a good thing, and it is arguably the most important part of a good soundstage.
I even think its a bit smoother thanKEFs own R3, which costs $500 more.
This is excellent performance.
Another way we can visualize the horizontal response is what we call a contour plot or polar map.
Turning to the vertical performance, we see one of the Metas greatest strengths relative to its competitors.
While these do not affect the soundstage too much, they can have a significant effect on tonality.
Because the LS50 meta uses coaxial drivers, vertical performance is as good as the horizontal performance.
Each of these graphs shows remarkable technical performance, especially for a $1,500 passive speaker.
The LS50 Meta is an exceptional piece of engineering.
I have no such doubts about the LS50 Meta.
Especially if properly integrated with a subwoofer, the LS50 Meta does pretty much everything right.
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