I’ve been getting into stereo systems lately watching YouTube videos from Andrew Robinson and John Darko. This started because I really like their approach to reviews and I wanted to emulate that but I got hooked on the content and thought, “Yeah I can do that too.” So I went out and bought a pair of KEF LSX speakers to enhance my computer setup. Admittedly this is just a first step in a deep pool of audiophile listening that I have planned. It’s a decent first step though.

Setup

The setup of these speakers should be straight forward. You just plunk them down then plug them in right? Well you’re wrong. You need to install a poorly written app on your phone that walks you through the setup. I bought these open box so I could save $400 which meant that someone else had set them up before me. This meant that the light wasn’t flashing the way it was supposed to. It wasn’t flashing at all. So I just dove straight in and hit the reset button on the speaker. Waited about a minute after that and the speaker was recognized. I set it up on my wireless network and I was good to go! This wasn’t as simple as I made it sound. The key is to wait a minute before trying to connect, and then you have to tap the screen while it’s searching. I don’t know, the app was fiddly.

How do they sound?

When truly wireless they can only do 48kHz audio. Everything else will get down-sampled. Plugging them together with the included Ethernet cable (and after finding the setting in the app) you get 96kHz. Now I don’t have as trained an ear as these audiophiles that I follow on YouTube, but I can hear a small difference between 48 and 96.

The sound stage is amazing. It really puts you in a place where every part of the music has a place and you can hear the separation in that space. It’s tall in that it has a certain altitude to it that I was missing before. granted I’m upgrading from a pair of Logitech computer speakers. It’s a bit like going from an R/C Car to a Porsche 911 in that it’s night and day in the sound.

Are they worth it?

Well… Yes and no. I’d like a bit more bass. They aren’t as punchy as I thought they’d be. The high end and the mid-range are amazing and like I said that sound stage is really good. I might take a look at getting a sub-woofer for them in the future, but for now they are great. They sound good at low volume and at moderately high volume. At high volume though I feel like they fall apart. Fortunately I don’t use them at high volume… yet. 😉

Let me know what you think:

@spatacoli

KEF LSX on Amazon