LOL @ hump
I heard these last november. Its sad that the adjacent rooms were HT hence it was NOISY and didn't do these LS50s justice.
It was partnered to a Musical Fidelity Pre+Power so that explains that it was just too warm for my taste.
I'm willing to give these another whirl for a brighter pre+power combo.
But I have to admit aliw yung midbass for its size, reminds me of the AE Reference 1s for less money.
Anyone tried them for pure/dedicated 2 channel audio and on 'bright' gears?
@Mikee
when we played around with the B&W 685,the Golden Ear AON3, Harbeth P3ser and the KEF LS50 we paired it with an AMX minima tube amp and a vintage technics stereo integrated amp(bright in nature imho so i think this fits into your question).
The 685 and P3ser worked well with the integrated and sounded quite similar(but the harbie of course had better vocals). While using the tube amp though I felt like the two needed more power to bring out the best in them.
The LS50 though was in a class of its own when it was paired with the tubes, the little bugger was not little at all when it started singing.
separation was nice, bass was good (felt like a sub was somewhere in the room!) and the vocals were upfront and it felt like a front row seat of a concert. Strings(violin) in particular was very pronounced with the LS50 but was hardly audible with the 685.
We listened to tracks from The Eagles (Hotel California), Tony O'Malley(Autumn leaves), Noel Cabangon(forgot the track, but i think it was kahit maputi na ang buhok ko) and Sarah Maclachlan(Angel) and some songs performed by Juris.
Overall I think the LS50 is an excellent for an audio set up, I can listen to it for hours and will never grow tired. It' s very good speaker and is bang for the buck at 54k.
The AON3 though was also in a class of its own when used for HT.
I'm kinda new to all of this so my observations may be found a bit vague but I'm hoping the others who were in the same room (Louie, Derick and Gavin) would be able to provide their own opinion of our nice little shootout.
I hope I was able to answer at least a bit of your question.