06-Feb-2018, 17:17
(05-Feb-2018, 23:59)antilles Wrote: I’ve never found external subs to integrate very well, so I don’t pay much attention to them and I did discount the benefit of using one with the LS50 somewhat. Apologies. If you don’t have any problem with the presentation and have experience with placement and getting the best out of them, then yes it should be fairly close. Can I ask why you prefer the SB13 Ultra to, say, dual R400B’s or a Reference 8b? I would imagine they would integrate better.
But as I said, it wasn’t so much poor sound that turned me off as poor manufacturing. It’s really not well made, and KEF’s terms all but admit it. There are widespread reports of serious hardware problems as well as poor, buggy software. I tend to think my time as too valuable to be dealing with tech failures if it can be helped. I just spent the better part of three months trying to get a motherboard replaced under warranty, would have been even more aggravating with something much more expensive. But if you’ve had better experiences... Since you already know the Golds and are obviously keen to, why not try something new? At worst, it will cost you some time and/or money. And you would be in a position to appraise probably the two foremost systems of their type.
I've ordered the KEFs and they will be here tomorrow so I will be able to assess their sound quality and ability to blend with the SB13. The reason why I am using the SB13 is because I actually had two of them before in my big rig and ended up selling one and deciding to keep the other as I was mulling over getting the KEFs. So the short answer is I'm going with the SB13 because I already have it and don't want to go through the process of selling it to buy another sub. I've been exceptionally pleased with the performance of the SB13, it meshed well with my Venere 3.0 and I'm hoping that it will also mesh well with the LS50W.
I will definitely report back tomorrow or the day after with my listening notes. Thanks again for all of your help!
