Dancing on the sand:
Chilling in the Caribbean
with Duran Duranpassion for soundGroup Test:
We audition six of thelatest active speakers

Buyin
Guideg100+ EssIssue No. 517

Compo ential
nep107 nts+August 2024

Newsextra:

dacs & audio players

in & over-ear ’phoneS

on-the-go speakers

phenomenal playlistS

Astell&Kern, Chord Electronics, FiiO, iFi Audio,
We Are Rewind, Studebaker, Roberts & more...
Your sounds out and about from JBL, Bang &Olufsen, Escape, Orange, DALI & more...

Head off on vacation with Apple, Bose,
Sennheiser, Master & Dynamic & more

Jazz, pop, rock, folk, soul, funk, classical,
opera – your sunshine soundtracks covered

PRINTED IN THE UKliacesp

All the sonic
kit you need foryour travels – onthe plane, by thepool, on thebeach and at
the festival...

august 2024

Summerextra
diouA
outdoor£5.75

Launchesfrom Sony,Fyne Audio, WiiM,Audio-Technica,Marantz, Lenco,Ortofon, Lumin,& more...

loudspeakers£700-£6,500
Grouptest Active

KEF
LS60 Wireless £4,500
KEF’s 60th-anniversary offering takes cues from its
flagship Blade Series and is a supreme tour de force
DETAILS
PRODUCTKEF LS60 WirelessOrigin
UK
Type
Active 3-way
floorstanding
speaker
Weight31.2kg eachDimensions(WxHxD)212 x 1,090 x 394mm
FEATURESl 19mm aluminium
tweeterl 100mm aluminium
midrange driverl 4x 135mm UniCore bass drivers
l Claimed power:
700W (each)
DISTRIBUTORKEF

E

ven in this exalted
company, the LS60
Wireless looks like it’slanded from a more exotic
high-end tier, impossibly slender witha distinctive driver configuration liftedfrom KEF’s £22,500 Blade Two Meta
and a pristine look of such pure, cleanelegance, some might even prefer it tothe Blade’s more extravagant curves.
Naturally, and as with the Blade
Two Meta, a Uni-Q unit (12th gen)takes centre stage. It’s the only driver
facing the listener. What’s more, it’s
bespoke to the LS60, teaming a
100mm aluminium diaphragm for themidband with a concentricallymounted 19mm vented aluminium
dome tweeter, making it the smallest
Uni-Q the company has ever produced.
Bass is fired sideways from eitherside of the enclosure by KEF’s Uni-Coredriver array tech, first seen in itsdinky KC62 sub. The two pairs of
135mm drivers are mounted back toback and use force cancellation witha shared motor to extract maximum
bass from the limited working volume
in this slim sealed-box design. Rather
than being located towards thebottom of the enclosure, the drivers
are in an equidistant formation
around the Uni-Q driver, the idea
being that all the frequencies areprojected from a single point –widening the stereo sweet spot. Each
enclosure delivers a whopping 700W
from three amplifiers: 500W for thebass, 100W for the midrange (bothClass D) and 100W Class AB for treble.
The right hand ‘primary’ speaker’sconnections include HDMI eARC,
optical and coaxial, a pair of analogue
RCA inputs plus a couple of Ethernet
ports, one to connect to your router,the second to the other speaker if you
want full 24-bit/192kHz capability.
There’s additionally support for
DSD256 and MQA. Amazon Music,Deezer, Qobuz, Spotify and Tidal are
all on the menu, and the ways toconnect comprise Apple AirPlay 2,
Google Chromecast and Bluetooth.
There is a small plastic remote, but
it’s largely redundant as the excellent
KEF Connect app covers everything aswell as providing a comprehensive
suite of EQ options.

Sound quality

Hold in your mind all your mostcherished sonic touchstones in a pure
hi-fi sense. Such is the LS60’s power,transparency, dynamic reach, control
and EQ flexibility, I’d be surprised if it
didn’t knock every single one of themclean out of the park and into the
middle of next month. It’s a supremely
impressive, potent and entertaining
speaker period, wireless or not.
Clarke’s Combat Continuum is aclear win. The KEF’s clarity and grip,
high powers of resolution, analysis
and organisation, knockout dynamics
and, for all suckers of the low stuff,
extension-adjustable, heavy-fistedbass raise the track to the next level,
the midband precision of the tiny
Uni-Q driver erasing a slight
Reprinted fromfor global distribution

chestiness from narrator Steve Blum’svoice and further swelling an alreadyvast soundscape while the sub-derived,side-firing drivers shift the piece into
window-rattling territory without any
perceptible onset of distortion ordecoherence. It’s quite something.
All right, so the LS60 leaps at any
chance to show what its 700W cando. But playing the gentler Lizzy

This is a supremely
impressive, potent
and entertaining
speaker, period
McAlpine and David Sanborn cuts
show it has a penchant for subtlety
too, with a deft musical touch,handling vocals and the songs’ morenuanced moments with an easy
assurance, delicacy and skill. Thereis a suspicion, with these tracks
especially, that the KEF doesn’t havequite as many fractional tonal shades
in its palette as the DALI andDynaudio do and its top end isn’t
quite as airy. In isolation, though,you’d never guess l

Our verdict
SOUND QUALITYVALUE FOR MONEY

Build quality

LIKE: Tremendous,
user-flexible sonics;
clean aesthetic; build
DISLIKE: Nothing
WE SAY: At the newprice, KEF is effectively
extracting theyou-know-what

FeaturesOVERALL

www.hifichoice.co.uk