Sub for KEF LS 50

[sound_cycle]

A fellow member offered to sell a Rotel for 26k, is it good for the kef's.

I had posted a linky with amps for ls50s upthread. Maybe it will be of some interest.

Note: I offer no comment or opinion on your specific question

Ciao
GR

 

[tuff]

Guys, I think the OP is into gaming, movies and casual music listening, hope he clarifies if true.

 

[Shinto]

Properly integrated sub.......that is the biggest problem. We never get it integrated, forget 'properly'. I have a sub woofer in my car, RFFG Punch connected to a Sony Xplod power amplifier. Sometimes they sound pretty ok. But otherwise the boom boom boom goes one way and the other frequencies goes another way. I never change the settings, but I hear both good and bad with it. In my old car, which was a hatch back, I had 2 JBL 6 inch speakers in the front and 2 Infinity Reference oval speakers in the rear connected to just the head unit(Pioneer). There was no amplifier, But the sound was way better. Much superior. Every song played just fantastic. I would never recommend sub woofers in music.

I am not talking about a car.I assume a car is out of the picture .This discussion is about a room.I have two rooms, my living room 6 m X 4m also opening to a kitchen and dining.the other room is a small 3 m X 3 m room.The same very speakers would need a sub in the bigger room where as they work perfectly and even booms in the smaller room.The point here is the main deciding factor is the size of the room in my opinion.The Op uses his living room.As mentioned earlier, a well integrated,( I don't know if mine is)is definitely worth it.The cross over,volume and position of the sub should be such that it just fills the lower registers.If it booms it is totally wrong.It is is very subtle.You need to go near the sub and may be touch the driver to see if it is working.But if you switch it off, the difference is night and day.

 

[Shinto]

I don't mean to offend anyone Shinto. Even I wanted a little bass in my music. In spite of discouragement from many high end users, I tried to insert a sub woofer to do the lows. Initially I enjoyed the sound. But while playing different genres of songs, different recordings, the integration kept on changing. For example, while listening to pop music I set a cross over to sound the best. Later when I play an Indian music, say hindi film songs or ghazals, I felt the urge to correct the cross over frequency again. I never got a range which worked well for all songs. If you guys got it, fine. Enjoy. But I am very happy listening to my 'sub less ' set up. Any song you play, any genre, the performance is just great.

Totally understand what you are saying.Its a give and take.Big room and bookshelf speaker, subwoofer is a must I would say.It makes the speaker bigger sounding.The result is quality sounding bookshelf with a full body sound.The difference is huge.The caveat is what you said ,may not be perfect for all songs.

 

[sound_cycle]

My idea is, if the room is big, get floor standers.

I had that idea.

I have improved on the SQ in my system through the addition of a sub. It was not difficult to integrate. I do not have to change from track to track. My hopefully not too shabby or embarrassing speakers are full range. I don't have an AVR. I have no issues with bass management in a 23x11x8 acoustically assymetric room after figuring out the placement, some treatment and DRC. I am hopeful that Dirac Live 2 will improve things further

None of it invalidates your opinions or experience.

And neither our of our experience or opinion will change the fact that a kef LS50 will sound better with a sub.

FTR I don't think Harbeth, or Magnepan or KEF are slighted by this thread or anyone's actions. Or by what or how I/you/OP listens.

Ciao
GR

 

[raghupb]

Every OEM makes gear to be used in certain ways.
Eventually, it is up to end user needs how things come together at home.
I think this discussion "To Sub or not to Sub" will keep going on ...
So let's agree to disagree and point @rajudhs in the right direction when the time comes.

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Shinto]

My idea is, if the room is big, get floor standers. All speaker manufacturers make their speakers to sound in a specific manner. They are intended to sound that way. All those big names, B&W, Dynaudio, Dali, ProAc.....they never say that for getting the best out of their books, you should connect a sub. For eg. my friend has a Spendor S3/5R bookshelf paired with a Plinius 8150 sourced from a Revox cd player. You must listen to that set up. There is no overwhelming bass sound, but the sound spectrum........ now that's music listening. I could sit there for the whole day and listen without a moment of ear fatigue. The room is pretty big too, maybe 13ft x 16 ft.

It seems you use Harbeth speakers. Do you really need a sub. I would say you are spoiling that great speaker's repute.

I disagree.
For me in my setup/room,the Harbeths sound way better with a sub.
It is my choice/preference after trying both.I am not sure if I am spoiling Harbeths repute.Even if Harbeth themselves thinks so, I don't mind as for me it is better with a sub.

 

[raghupb]

My set up is simple. A cd player, amplifier and speakers. I use no correction software of any kind. Just straight music. Maybe that's why I don't get it right with subs. The original poster asked an opinion, I said mine. Let him decide. Members who want to add sub to stereo, let them add, others like me who want to hear it as it is without corruption....oops. sorry correction, let them do so.

Out of curiosity, does your amp have tone controls?
If so, are they helpful when you use them to tweak?
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Shinto]

My set up is simple. A cd player, amplifier and speakers. I use no correction software of any kind. Just straight music. Maybe that's why I don't get it right with subs. The original poster asked an opinion, I said mine. Let him decide. Members who want to add sub to stereo, let them add, others like me who want to hear it as it is without corruption....oops. sorry correction, let them do so.

Seems like there is some misunderstanding here.The bass management is just a high pass filter that blocks frequencies below a certain range to the speakers.This is the only good thing about using an AVR for music.I used this with my AVR for stereo music.Even average speakers sound good this way as you are not asking them to deliver what they can't,the sub will be assigned with this.But now no AVR,just a stereo amplifier with preouts wired to the subwoofer.With better speakers now,it is easier to integrate.I am just not understanding how is the signal corrupt in either case.

 

[sound_cycle]

Actually I almost quit from this discussion, but if you wish, please read this.

The case against subwoofers for music

For home theater and games, sure, subwoofers can provide deep bass oomph that speakers alone can’t match.

www.cnet.com

From the same reviewer on a different day. He has become okay with "corrupted" sub tainted music, a year later

Ciao
GR

 

[Ashenden]

^^ I love using equalizers to make bad recordings sound less harsh. Nothing wrong in it. If any audiophile friend visits, we can always hide it away

 

[rajudhs]

i dont know why people are tagging me in this converstation @rajudhs
i have no relation to this thread, please tag the right person

 

[raghupb]

i dont know why people are tagging me in this converstation @rajudhs
i have no relation to this thread, please tag the right person

My bad. Sorry buddy.
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[sound_cycle]

He said change... Not improve....... Whatever.... Forget it.... I quit... You go your way, I go mine

Sure. I am not trying to get anyone to do anything that they do not want to. But I would like to add this bit.

In case you thought the audiophiliac was vague, or that kef disapproves of hooking up a LS50 with a sub, heres KEF on Steve's show telling you which KEF sub for the LS50. it has dsp too.

Kef is a highly reputed speaker manufacturer and LS 50 is supposed to be one of their prestige product. Nowhere, it is mentioned in any article them, on adding a sub.

Ciao
GR

 

[prem]

Just to put things in perspective, every audio recording studio I know uses subs. They are like two to four 18 inchers per sub. And they use subs with floorstanders. Once you hear subs properly integrated with the main speakers, stand mounts sound like toys. I am not saying people with bookshelves should use subs, but rubbishing it is plain stupid

To add to my post, it’s only when you add a quality sub and you integrate it correctly with the main speakers, do you really get low level information and you are able to hear the recorded space of the event. I have a JBL floorstander with a 15 inch bass driver but I still don’t get that low level information. In the past I had subs with 18 inchers and you could clearly hear the recorded venue. For example Meeting by the River is a classic. On 95% of the systems you can’t appreciate the recording. It’s only in systems which can handle full frequency range can you hear the venue. It’s been recorded in a cathedral. Obviously all of above is valid for speakers with subs of a very good quality. Not the ones used in home theatre. At least subs of REL level.

 

[raghupb]

Thanks @prem for that explanation.
In my case, in the past I could not get the sub to work seamlessly with my pre/amp.
A new preamp is coming in a couple of weeks that has 2.1 support with HT bypass.
Your insight and experience gives me confidence to retry all the experiments that failed earlier.
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[prem]

Raguppb, the biggest challenge is integration. Not from a crossover or vol or placement point of view. Those things you will get right with trial and error. I use integration in context of tone and speed of sub driver matching that of the woofer of the main speaker. Also another challenge is the kind of amps used to drive the sub and the main. Ideally they should be of the same topology. Ideally get a passive sub and an external active crossover and if you are using a tube amp to drive the main, use a similar tube amp of higher wattage to drive the sub. You can’t have a D class amp driving a sub with a damping factor of 1000 and a tube amp driving the mains with a damping factor of 5. You’ll never get the correct integration. I hope you get the drift. There’s much more to integration than just crossover and vol setting

 

[raghupb]

@prem
I have class A/B monoblocks driving the mains. Don't know the damping factor.
Currently, I have a very old Onkyo sub (20+ years). Don't know the type of amp; barely passable for HT.
Since REL has been mentioned a few times in the course of this discussion, maybe time for an sub refresh .
Lets see.

@RAJUSH26
Sorry to temporarily hijack your thread. Just thought that the suggestions that hold for LS50 may hold for R300 too.

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[prem]

Raghupb, it’s always best to check with the designer of the speakers as to what sub he will recommend. They know their speakers best. That’s what I would do. Anytime I buy new equipment, I understand from the designer as to what isolation he used, what cables, what power cords, etc and I just replicate that. I never second guess. If you don’t trust the designer, you shouldn’t be buying his speakers in the first place

 

[superczar]

There’s much more to integration than just crossover and vol setting

Couldn't agree more!
Subs can have weird response curves based on the sub model and the position.
Simply tweaking the x-over and volume would have done nothing for the boominess that would have been caused by the spike (10 db+ :-O ) around 100 hz
If I simply tried to fix the problem by adjusting the volume, I would have eliminated the boominess but also eliminated (or significantly reduced ) the levels at the all important 20-50 hz band - cutting the gain there negates the reason to get a sub in the first place.


Purists may scoff for all sorts of reasons but I maintain that PEQ or room correction is the only way to integrate a sub (other than buying a $$$$$ sub and using it in a very well treated room) - see the green curve below for the amount of response shaping required to get the Sub response in line with what is to be expected