KEF LS50 Meta

The speaker the room keeps — passive bookshelf, re-foamable drivers and a separate amp, vs Bluetooth

The second 'sound' record on the Sound & light shelf, after the lamp opened the light and the headphone the closest sound. We follow one passive bookshelf speaker — re-foamable, driven by a separate amplifier you replace on its own clock — from why that separation outlasts the one-box kind to where its roughly $10-a-year floor and $53-a-year proven figure come from, set honestly against a Bluetooth speaker dead on a sealed battery in two to three years. Named picks: KEF LS50 Meta, ELAC Debut, and Klipsch Heresy (1957–).

• ·speakers
• ·bookshelf speakers
• ·passive speakers
• ·KEF LS50 Meta

• Durable
• Honest
• Future
• Less