Arcus

I would definitely buy them again and they replaced $10K worth of stuff. If I was going to replace them, the only speaker I'd look at right now is the Kii Audio Three and they are way out of my current budget so I'll be keeping the LS50w's for a while.

Awesome!

I bought a white Sumiko S.9 to match my LS50W's and then decided it wasn't needed for my modest sized music room so I sold it to keep things simplified. These speakers go surprisingly deep; in fact, they are as good as the Harbeth C7's I had which are about twice the size.

Based on your limited requirements, there are a bunch of active monitors that you could consider. I was seriously considering the APS Klasik but decided to get the LS50W because of all the extra functionality.

I have no interest in going back into a traditional set-up so I'm sticking with the LS50W for now. They really only need some updated software and firmware to make them the ideal solution so I'm optimistic they can get there. If I make any changes it would be to other active speakers.

I was being sarcastic when I referred to it as Beta software. It was officially released on their public site for customers.

We're under the impression that they are working on Roon support although I do agree that any software support could be beneficial and Roon certainly knows how to create solid software with a nice UI. FYI, I was using Roon with the speakers but the beta (maybe alpha) firmware that was released on 5/22 has made the speaker unusable right now. 2 1/2 weeks later and I'm not aware of any response from KEF which is starting to be a very bad sign for their ability to support this product.

I have my Harbeth C7's sitting in boxes in the same room as the LS50W's but I'm going to wait it out a little longer before I get tempted to unbox them. If we don't see another firmware update in the next few days, my state of mind may change as the current buggy update came out on May 22nd.

I would assume Chinese programmers since the speakers are manufactured in China.

Yeah, I guess this illustrates how dependent we become on the vendor when the speakers have their own CPU. Not sure if KEF outsources this part of if they have their own programmers but they definitely need to dramatically improve software quality assurance.

LOL. Yes, I just posted there. I hate to be the one to tell you this but I think you are a little big for that trike

UPDATE: I am now experiencing the same stupid crackling or hiss that others are experiencing. Get your sh**t together KEF!

Nope. I definitely would have mentioned that.

I've done both the firmware update and the app update. No problems playing via optical w/ Apple Airport using AirPlay.

Well, that's disappointing. There was no mention of Tidal capability via the latest firmware update so what's the point of adding it to the app?