Wanna Buy 'em Through My Affiliate Links? Thanks!!! Here you go: Crutchfield: howl.me/ckSCXDW8O5q Amazon: amzn.to/48cZGEs Audio Advice: www.audioadvice.com/?referral=erins-audio-corner Best Buy: howl.me/clc9JuIDfhg

I second your sentiment about finding it hard to describe a neutral speaker. The biggest compliment you can give to a speaker or sound system is that it's tranparent and it no longer becomes about the gear, and instead it's about the content and what the artist created. When I get great speakers in for review, I end up just listening to music and I forget I'm reviewing the speaker.

The LS60 is an awesome all in one package but they really need build in room correction. If it had Dirac like those active Dynaudio speakers it would be perfect.

Bikinpunk, man you have come a long ways. I greatly appreciate everything you do and to be honest you are the only one on KZfaq that blends the data and subjective so well. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

I think someone on ASR once emailed KEF about their SPL specs. Turns out that the specs indeed refers to both speakers playing at 1 meter distance. Weird choice but seems to be correct according to your measured data.

Watched alot of channels prior to buying my speakers, little interest in the topic thereafter, but this channel I continue to watch because of the proper relevant information and content. Thumbs up from Sweden! Sadly we don't get alot of the brands you lot do in the US.....

Thank you for reviewing and measuring these excellent loudspeakers. Your presentation is very comprehensive and detailed, as always.

This is the way Review must be . Very useful. Learning lot of things and what to expect

Am in the UK and just discovered your channel and really enjoying it- love the measured subjective views and empirical objective assessment. Thank you.

Excellent work and such useful commentary! I particularly like how you break down the preconceived notion that a sub would clean up the already clean lower mid range response further.

You're making the internet a brighter place. Much love!

Awesome, you finally got the Klippel to accept tower speakers! Can’t wait for more! So helpful for us speaker consumers.

Erin, More Great Stuff! Keep it up! Also looking forward to hearing your brake down on the MoFi Sourcepoints.

Hey, man your reviews are really relatable and connect well. Keep up the good work man

Wish kef would have included a built in room correction like the new dynaudio active speaker line.

Erin putting in the work 👌🏾🔥🔥🔥

This is awesome. Thanks Erin! I have a pair and I'm really happy with them as I didn't think I'd ever be satisfied by a SYSTEM that costs $5k. Despite some relative weaknesses in detail/air and dynamics vs the very best they just do a great job of getting out of the way of the music and play everything well. In my opinion I would say your review is pretty spot on. I run more toe-in than I probably should technically but it helps lock in the imaging in my asymmetrical room. Still tweaking toe-in/setup though. If KEF is listening, I would absolutely like to reiterate the desire for a parametric EQ. I have a strong bass mode around 40hz but it's somewhat counterproductive to roll-on a bunch of wall mode attenuation and lose out on the energy from the mode up to 500hz. I am using Roon/Muse eq to dial in bass but that unfortunately doesn't address the other inputs Im using. Also a few more things for Kef. 1) The remote sucks. Dream scenario would be a wireless physical rotary knob for volume/source selection with indicators for current volume/source. 2) A front grill would offer peace of mind for parties/when kids are present. 3) This thing is good enough that I would love to see a wireless Reference 60!

Thanks Erin! Have a pair and never ever feel they don’t go loud enough in a fairly large room. Love their neutral honest sound, stereo image, looks, built quality and ease of use. ❤

Erin thanks for another great review. Love that you started with I Don’t Care Anymore by Phil Collins. I had to stop the review and stream that track. Great stuff and an excellent track to test soundstage and instrument separation and the air in the music. Twin drums on many tracks and on tour with him and Chester Thompson behind dual kits was amazing. Loved Phil in the 80s and now again. Critics be damned. Keep up your great work!

Great review as always! Have had these for 6 months and love them. They get exceptional in my room when using roon peq to adjust a few frequencies which is what I use for 95% of my listening.. Would still like to have a peq option (per channel) built in to the app. Only drawback is that there are no protection for the driver's but found a thin fabric to wrap around the speaker which looks okich.... But would be nice with something original in the box from kef.. ( if you don't have a sterile environment) = kids and animals...running around 😜

I have to say you've really got me interested in coax speakers. Huge, thanks as always for giving your subjective impressions as well

Love that you reviewed these! Thanks. I have a pair and love them. Watching now…

Great review. I hope you’re now able to bring more tower speaker reviews. 🙂 That data seems to imply excellent engineering from KEF (which is far from unexpected), with all the benefits of built-in EQ and DSP. I personally find them uglier than they should be, but that’s only my a personal opinion. Data seems to confirm also what may be expected by looking at the speaker, namely that SPL limit. Although technology has come a long way in the last years on extracting so much from relatively small cabinets (thank in great part to DSP and built in amps), enclosure volume (or displacement) is still a factor on loudspeaker design. So there’s no real surprise on those SPL limits, and for all the benefits that good point source designs have, there only so much that the tweeter/mid-range drivers are able to do (I believe they’re relatively small in surface area). Those side woofers are able to do a lot, or only “so much” (it depends where what we use as a reference point). 🙂 But this review confirms the excellent loudspeaker design, and if we look at their price considering that we no longer need external amps or stands, their value is even better. Keeping in on the same brand and in the topic of towers vs bookshelves, I would rather spend my money on these than in the R1. I would even love to see how the R11 Meta compares with the LS60s and the R1, since this is probably my own bias, but I was never able to justify spending above a certain amount of money on bookshelves. As great as they can be at doing some things, it’s never close to a full-range sound, which I absolutely want above certain price points. Yes, we can add a good subwoofer (or more) and get even better bass response (specially with DSP and good bass management/EQ), but I feel that my brain is always reminding me that the sound isn’t coming from the same sources as the rest of the frequencies. I’ve been able to achieve a very linear in-room bass response after a lot of tuning with DSP (EQ, phase, etc), but even when I cross my main towers at 80 Hz and the bass seems to be coming out of them 80% of the time, there’s the other 20% that make me remember that are other bass sources in the room. (I may be exaggerating, and it might be only 5 or 10% of the time, but once I notice it, it’s hard to get that thing out of my mind). What I’m saying with this is that I’d rather have the bass sources coming from the same speaker as the mids and highs, whenever possible, and good tower speakers (like this one) are usually better at achieving that. It would be great if you could measure the R11 Metas and several other floorstanders (trying not to hurt your back 🙂). Bookshelf speakers are nice, but if I really want the best performance from a small enclosure (with bass output limitations), I would rather buy a pair of studio monitors from the likes of Neumann or Genelec. They usually aim for being really neutral, and these days then can even be precisely tuned for each room with built in DSP. Consumer bookshelves can easily look better on a living room, but paying a lot more for looks while downgrading on performance isn’t my favorite thing. In the passive loudspeaker world, I still prefer a properly designed floostander for my money.

Erin you are the best!

Thx for the review!! I heard these in a store and thought they were very loud so I wonder how big a room must be for them to not be loud enough 😅😅 I would also love auto room EQ like Sonos has for Kef software.

Gorgeous speaker. Excited to hear you can test more towers now. Even though they're old speakers at this point, I would love to see some measurements on the JBL Studio 590, 580, and 570. Greg Timbers created something special with this line. If I was closer to Bama I'd let you borrow my 590 and 570.

20:26 love how you pointed out those tiny peaks almost off the chart

I bought a new pair of R7s a month ago and just can’t warm up to them. Soundstage is so narrow and music feels lifeless. Other than bass power I prefer my newly required Lintons and elac ref. Probably gonna return the kefs. Good review.

Thank you Erin! ❤

My dream speakers.

Your data-driven reviews are the best. I've learned a lot about WHY speakers sound different from watching your channel. Many reviewers out there shroud their opinion in magic speak and fuzzy subjective nonsense, but truth is that it's all about physics. You link the perceived sound to the numbers, and that's immensely valuable for audio consumers.

Excellent work as always Erin. How would you say they compare to the Buchardt A700?

Does it come anywhere close to KEFs reference line, like the Reference Meta 1 you reviewed?

Very much needed review! :) All good in general but some things stick out: 4" distortion and compression at 96 dB is not awesome. Yes it is only 4", but I was hoping it would destroy LS50 (considering that this driver is used in Ci250RRM-THX). Also without Dirac upgrade a high-end powered speaker is not complete - needs a head unit like miniDSP SHD Studio :)

Thank you for such great review! Could you please share your playlist to demonstrate speakers?

I received my pair on Dec. 26. I fully agree with your assessments. Spot on and great job!!! I am using the LS60s in my office, which is a fairly small room: 11.6' x 13.6' x 12', and I sit about 6' from the baffles. At the maximum volume at which I listen to the speakers I have not detected compression being an issue. The LS60s sound really, really good. I could use all of the subjective audiophile terminology crap to describe the sound of the LS60s, but your description and measurements tell the story extremely well. I was looking for an audio system for my office for a long time, but never found anything causing me to want to pull the trigger. Aesthetically, bookshelf speakers that are really good never really fit the decor, and floor standers typically are just too big for the room. I had seen the KEF LS60s, and they caught my eye as being a nice fit aesthetically, and the reviews I read/watched all gave them high marks. But, to be candid, I take the subjective review information provided by other reviewers (other than Amir at ASR) with a large grain of salt. I was hoping you would review these speakers, and you did. Fortunately for me, your video came out while the speakers were on sale at a $2,000 discount. After seeing your review, in combination with the sale, I jumped on these speakers. I am glad I did. Thank you!!!

I'm just curious on the skiple microphone what is its frequency and noise floor rotated in the room without any speakers being played, the ambient noise and mechanical noise from the device. have you done anything like that what is it's noise floor and frequency response? You can try this little trick if you want to increase the treble helps with dispersion at high frequencies get yourself a aluminium tray you know like for food stiff one, a piece of a wooden dowel a centimeter in diameter and some blu-tac or similar. Drill a 5 mm hole in the dowel, cut the foil tray to the size of the dowel a centimeter round place it on a flat bit of blu tac on a kitchen worktop place the dowel on top of the metal and blu tac with a hammer, give it a quick slap you want to achieve about a 3 mm in-depth round divot in the metal, attach this to the centre of the tweeter wave guide, you can attach this with a bit of blu tac or double-sided tape making sure you're not touching the actual driver diaphragm

How do these compare to Kef's R11 metas? I was looking at those and wouldn't need amp/avr etc with these.

Latitude!!!Very good. A very welcome review!!!

Huge thank you! Bought them this summer, but have longed for you or Amir getting your hands on a pair. Especially regarding the effects of treble trim and wall mode. Have the same bass experience as you describe. Have them at about minus 3-4.5 dB, but have been down to minus 6 when they are very close to the wall. Also use about 2 dB treble boost, but with no toe-in. Probably a preference thing. Again, thank you.

Whatever this speaker is or isnt, this is the future of minimalist high performance loudspeakers.

I've recently purchased a pair of these and can concur on the slightly dull treble (even in my bright room), boomy bass and throttling back of the frequency response at high SPL levels. I'm still making small adjustments but having the bass extension set to extended and wall mode set to -2.5 dB makes the bass sound much more even. Same with adding +1.5 dB to the treble to add some of the missing sparkle. The speakers now sound very good across all types of music so I can now get on with selling all my previous (traditional) gear!!

Hard to get across those bass moats 😅 These speakers seem like a good deal. You can easily spend 8 to 10k on seperates trying to achieve the same thing. Although you can get more amplification with seperates. I do agree that if one is making an all in one type digital system, you gotta add some digital dsp/PEQ. I like the idea and look of these. Great video & review!

I'm waiting for the self powered dsp corrected Klipsch Forte speakers. They also serve well as table tops for lamps and such.

Erin, do you have a view on best bang-for-the-buck powered hi-fi speakers? Between these, JBL 4329P and Dynaudio Focus 50, for example? (Or other main competitors?)

Checked out on Crutchfield through the link. Look great in Blue but only a 2 year warranty. Too much trouble with powered speakers to spend $5K with only 2 years of coverage. I Get 10 years with my passive Arendals. The manufacturers are telling us what to expect with reliability long-term. I’m listening.

This kind of speakers with native Room EQ Wizard, or with dirac would be the endgame. :)

Will a subwoofer or two give you more headroom (re max SPL)?

What's the repairability like on these? Seems like if I'm investing £5k in a set of speakers I'd want them to last a decade or more. SVS seems great with their subs - they just ship you a new plate amp that has all the electronics/bluetooth etc. built in and you can easily do a home replacement.

50K subscribers just around the corner.

if the usb socket on the speaker could power a Wiim mini then you'd have a fancy combination with PEQ. Nice solution overall for the price.

look like very well engineered speakers, love the dsp flexibility. I think they would be an easier sell at the full MSRP if they managed to fit 6.5" drivers in the side with perhaps a bit more volume. Im sure they will be great for small to small/medium rooms. Id hate to spend 7k on a pair of speakers and not be able to fully rock out at times. So many people love thinks like the new series cornwalls despite probably poor freq response and directivity errors, because they can play as loud as they want without stressing them at all.

Excellent review. I imagine adding a sub so you can cross over could get around the compression at high SPL for movies. Would you agree?

I wonder how these compare to the Buchardt A700s for both music AND home theater applications.

Considering the features, aesthetics, measurements, and price these are probably the best "pound for pound" speakers in the world.

This speaker looks really good, but one bad thing you didn't mention that you measured is the Group Delay. Due to its build in DSP it has 14ms more group delay than a passive speaker like the LS50 Meta, which is a lot for me personally.

That co~incidental mid will be an awesome kickpannel mid in a car!

Nice review, thank you. However, I just got them and I have a volume problem. The volume scale in the KEF Connect app supports values from 0-100. However, starting from 0, the first increase in actual volume is at value 16. After that nothing might happen for a while then too much increase in volume. The same happens when lowering it, although possibly with different values. You have about 8-10 real volume steps instead of 100. This is highly annoying, as it’s basically impossible to fine control he volume, especially at lower values. I know it might be because of a “logarithmic” scale, but there should at least be an option to choose a linear one. These are hi-fi speakers, from which finesse is expected, not loudness. Please let me know if there is a solution to this, as it’s quite close to making me return them.

What do you do when the internal amps inevitably fail? I have 4 Def Tech powered towers that all failed at different times but there are no replacement parts available anymore from Def Tech so they just sit in storage.

Can anyone say how these compare with the KEF R11s?

Hey Erin ... nice speaker, but a bit out of my usual range. Can you get in the Magnat Monitor Supreme 802 or it's big brothers for scanning? It's a nice little mini-tower and I'd like to see how well it does or doesn't.

Yes! I've been waiting for this one!

Erin can you review the Elac Unifi UB5 bookshelf speakers?

Thanks Erin,, 👍🌟‍‍👍‍‍

I’m kind of amazed they get such deep bass from 5.25” drivers. I guess it’s the DSP and maybe very long throw drivers. I always feel like a larger woofer is better when going for bass.

I have these speakers, and I think you are pretty much nailing the review. They are very good. Among the best I've heard, certainly for less than $10k. Mine are setup about the same as you found to be good, so pointed at something maybe 1m or so behind me. The bass was also coming in too hot in my living room setup, and I actually had to set the to -5dB. But that works great. Extremely detailed, huge soundstage, perfect center imaging. But mind you I have mine on ISOAccoustics Gaia II feet, which did clean up the soundstage even more. As far as SPL, I haven't been close to needing the speakers max potential. For streaming I'm at about 50% volume, when I want to listen at loud levels. Maybe I go up to 55% from time to time. Mine play deep bass. More than enough to run them with no subwoofer. That timing alignment and single point source really makes them sound very pure and transparent. I use mine with the TV as well, and voices are just perfectly in the center, seemingly coming straight from the mouth of the person talking on screen. They are well worth the asking price. The price they cost when they were launched, the slightly increased price after that, and certainly the price they want now when it's on sale. One of the very best qualities of the speakers is their ability to deliver engaging sound. All music I've tried on them are more engaging than I'm used to. If you want best of the best, Qobuz for streaming is it.

Hey Erin I know you said PS audio reached out to you a while back about measuring one of their speakes but you couldnt due to size and cost, but now that your measuring some larger speakers would you be able to measure their newer FR10? Seems to be $10k a pair which is expensive but significantly more affordable.

The ls60 or the buchardt A700 ?

Hi Erin, I’m going to pull trigger for Ls60 soon, my quick question is, is the sub still need to play with them? I aim for KC62 or KF92 for medium room, which one you suggest for music 75% movie 25% Or it not needed?

Hi Erin! Would you purchase these (ls60) over spending a little more to get a pair of dutch and dutch 8c?

I’d be tempted by these especially at the special offer price apart from one big thing, they don’t have a usb interface to the internal DAC I believe? So they miss out on the ability to feed lossless stream from Apple music via iPad. 😢

It would have been cool to see how the frequency response changed with the 3DB high end boost and the low end with the close wall setting. 😊

Final validation that those are good :)

Erin's speaker reviews are most creditable on youtube. Every speaker review should have measurements to be creditable. Speaker reviews without measurement are no better than infomercial. Consumers should only purchase speakers with measurements to not regret after purchasing. It would be cool if KEF can make a passive version of book shelf speaker with exact same drivers and arrangement. It can be called LS55 meta. For same material and design, 3" or 4" mid woofer drivers is better for human voices than 5" or 6" drivers.

Thanks Erin! Maybe I'm the outlier here, but I'm not super impressed by these. I've heard them in the context of being among other concentric speakers like Fyne and thought they sounded dull. I own a pair of the OG Reference 1s which I use nearfield and even after several years they continue to impress me with their honesty and flat out dynamic power. There's just something about the LS60 that's off...maybe a bit TOO "lifestyle-ey" to the point where someone who really wants to hone them in is a bit neutered? Even the little LS50 wirelesses seem like they boogie in a way the LS60 just doesn't. Please tell me I'm not crazy...lol.

I was also going to ask, Erin, sound wise how you compare these with the Dutch and dutch?

I would argue that the max SLP is where the bass limiting starts. Once the bass is limited what is the point of turning it up more?

Would you recommend this or JBL 4329P?

When listening to these at a dealer (for what it's worth) i was left with the feeling something was missing, it was like listening to (very good) bookshelf speakers with a sub. But lacking that floorstander feeling, somehow that big sound that tower speakers can bring wasn't there.

I've had them for about 3 months & I'm a little underwhelmed. I've got them paired with duel KC62 subs. There's something just a little lifeless about them, especially in the midrange. We moved house & I lost my dedicated listening room. I decided to go from separates & passive speakers to a more form friendly all in one that I could use with the tv. I've played about so much, raised them 2" with wood & isoacoustic feet (which helped a lot) some treatment, the room doesn't help but.. they're impressive but I'm not itching to get in there like I used to. I'll play one or 2 tracks that are great recordings but I'm not sucked into playing albums & spending all night there like I used to. They're great for movies & the little KC62 subs are fantastic. That midrange just doesn't sing to me, I don't love them. Just goes to show how important the room is. For clarity I'm not a measurements guy. I picked my last speakers when they made my wife cry (Dali rubicon 6) listening to her favourite songs.

What degree of toe in was the speaker designed for by KEF?

Hi, Thank you very much for the review, all your work has been fantastic, unique and extremely helpful. I am very interested to upgrade but i am not sure if its a good idea? I have 3.1 system, a pair arendal bookshelf 1723 for L&R and Arendal monitor 1723 s for the Center, Denon x3600 avr, Goldenear supersub x. i like the look, sound according to you (which i trust) and simplicity. i am sure kef ls60 is going to be perfect for the music but i am not sure how is it with movies and dialogs. could you please help me!? thanks

R11 META VS LS60?

I wish you reviewers would rank all the speakers you review not for value for money but just how good they are. I mean, are these better/worse than PS Audio FR10 which are around twice the price? Are they better/worse than Mofi Sourcepoint? We never get told, only that they are good/bad value for their price. I might be willing to spend more on FR10 for just a 20% improvement

Nice! Thanks! PS score of 7.6! wow that is high!

Is Kef considering adding the UBacch plugin?

Would these "work" in a very large room? 6m X 9m X 2.7m? Seated about 2.8m from speakers.

why erin draw distortion at 3% instead of the typical hifi 1%? ...?

I hate the cables that has to go to the master speaker … I prefer the buchardt approach with a hub .

Kef seems really consistent and strong as a manufacture. Love my R900s

you really have to be diligent when looking at the anechoic frequency response. when you get them in your room bass is going to change, in my room(small) bass has to have an rise in response from 100hz to 0hz to sound evenly loud. so you need to know your room and how large or small speakers work in there. from measurement these ls60 drop of after 50hz at least, i still would like to eq at 100hz and below to make it work for me. and to respond to the max spl compression chart: you really can not play any loud before 100hz is starting to roll of, with no increase in distortion as he pointed out but volume loss. but you also looses 4khz and above. low level listening speaker.

Is it Roon ready??

Something like this from a company that will provide great, long term support would be great. Kef abandoned LS50 wireless 1 customers, so they will abandon people that buy these, too.

Is that a Model Y Performance? :P

Still feel strange to see time align to describe something with different bandwidth...linear phase/zero phase perhaps?

Nice review, as always. But, to my ear, these speakers sound worse than they measure -- which is rare. I'm 66 yo and I can definitely hear a lack of air on top. I also hear weird upper-midrange grain that drives my nuts. I hear the same issues on all KEF Uni-Q drivers. However, I acknowledge that I'm in the minority regarding KEF's. Most folks I know love them. YMMV.

I’d prefer a passive version that could last decades and allow an upgrade path on the digital front rather than something full of components that will either fail or become outdated within 10 years

Would consider these if they had a decent warranty

wait @erinsaudiocorner - you suggest turning the speakers 15 degrees towards the listener?

I've got a small room. Hence Standmounts with a couple of subs. That room gain is not for me!