They showed us everything! Inside look at KEF America
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
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00:00 - The trip to KEF America
05:15 - An interview with KEF
13:57 - DMS and Resolve Reflect
16:27 - I bought one.
Nice video, guys!
I dream of owning a pair of the Blade Metas. If I can ever get Kef to loan me a pair to review I’ll likely leave the country with them. I need to google countries who don’t extradite… 😂
Been a headphone guy for the past 15 years, but now eyeing the KEF Reference 1 Meta, after having bought my first home 3 years ago. Speakers ARE expensive, it's not just the speakers (plus stands for stand mounters); it's the space required (i.e., need to buy a bigger home), the room treatments, the additional home & contents insurance and the cables are not typically cheap either.
Nice video, but you didn't show any footage of that awesome theater they have there. That and the 3 equipment racks driving that whole place are a sight to behold. My boss and I had the pleasure of getting to see the lounge last year for some product demos just as the Meta line was coming out. Ben is a cool guy and was super knowledgeable. He was talking way over my head on the technology that goes into their speakers. It's an impressive place and it is cool that they're more open to show off their products and what goes into them than other companies out there.
Love KEF's coaxial tech, they are the only desktop speakers I've used where I can move my head into the screen and still get a good sense of imaging and soundstage, blew me away when I first heard them, and I'm using old school Q100s!, perfect 'budget' desktop speakers if anyone is looking on the secondhand market, front ported to which is a bonus.
A new KEF (R3) owner here and enjoyed learning more about the company and its tech. I started my HiFi journey with headphones and subscribed to your channel then and have since moved up to speakers. I'm glad to see your channel evolving to bring speakers into the mix. Best of luck going forward, and I look forward to your future speaker reviews and commentary.
Don't be afraid of subwoofers for your neighbours sake unless you share a wall.
I have two rel 1205's, paired with bookshelf speakers in a 2.0 config handled by a minidsp flex, and set the volume just to the point that I can't hear anything at the fence line on a quiet night. Even at low volume the added bass extension makes a huge difference.
Isolating them from the hardwood floors with rubber pads helps a lot too.
During the day I turn it up a fair bit more to the point that the volume at the fence line matches the ambient daytime noise, which for me is plenty loud.
Yup that's the point. Many people live in apartments and condos. You're talking about bass traveling outside of your house to the fence and then into your neighbor's house 10s or hundreds of feet away? Yeah you can get away with a lot of subwoofer at that distance...
The 104/2 's were always my dream pair, ever since my days in the US Air Force barracks overseas in Suffolk, UK. Every airman had a badass stereo and a lot of guys had B&W or KEF or Klipsch speakers..ah, the 80's !! Of course, it was all tax free on base at the A/V Room 👍👍
Great video, nice seeing the US Headquarters. Just wanted to say that I think you mentioned "super wide sweet spot" and "move around the room and it sounds the same." Sweet spot and off-axis response where there's not a lot of high frequency rolloff and or discrepancy in the sound are different things. Yes the latter helps with the former, but the sweet spot is where the center image (like the vocalist) is solid in the middle and imaging and soundstage are defined so you can "see" the performance in front of you, where musicians/instruments are playing. Just being able to sit or walk off to the side or the back of the room and not have the frequency response change drastically doesn't mean you're still in the imaging/soundstage sweet spot.
My story is almost identical to Andrew's. I was also a headphone-only guy, but man the LS50W's just spoke to me. I ended up buying a pair, and they are darn good. The main issue is that I still don't want to bother my neighbors too much (since I live in an apartment), but even when I'm not listening they look phenomenal so 0 regrets.
I built a system around KEF R3s with an NAD integrated and an SVS 3000Micro. When I finished testing, tweaking, etc., I played some tracks for a friend and he congratulated me on my full-body headphones.
Room treatment and dispersion has stopped from really considering speakers, or at least upgrading from my vintage towers that do the job just fine with my turntable and with my aux cable hooked up to my phone. I have or doing some digging into an upgrade from Sonos speakers for my parents. Seeing this level of off-axis performance, and the options for speakers with integrated power supplies and wireless connectivity to TVs and music streaming really is getting me back into looking at speakers. KEF has for a long time been a brand I had considered when/if I had the money to spend on speakers and after I was done just buying IEMs and headphones. Seems like lots of audio enthusiasts recommend them as a higher-end option.
LS50s with subs is heaven.
If you're in an apartment then get a forward firing sub & put it on a thownshend seismic platform and get a Lyngdorf tdai-1120 and use the room perfect room correction.
I have this set up on timber floors and its almost silent downstairs.
I think the only 'problem' with KEF speakers is you sort of forget they're there. I've had Q700 floorstanders with a honking big Rotel amp as part of the TV setup for so long, and they do the job so well without drawing attention to themselves, it took this video to remind me I have them. I was like 'hmm, maybe I should get some KEF speakers... wait".
That’s exactly what drew me to KEF long, long before I started working for them.
Great tour guys,just bought KEF II wireless with the KEF KC62 sub and they sound great.👍
These speakers sound divine and would LOVE to hear more about speakers from this channel!
Really nice video guys. Glad to see KEF continue to get coverage for their labors.
Would love to hear your thoughts on a Tekton speaker review.
KEF is one of my all-time favorite speaker manufacturers, the R 11s are probably my next speaker purchase. I'm a 'both' kind of guy, headphones and speakers, in-home and in-car, I need the best I can get. 😎
On a side note, the audio from the interviews and when you guys are addressing the audience, the audio was really bad. Lots of background hiss and noise, not sure if it's the wireless mic you were using, but night and day vs in the studio with the connected mic. FYI.
Thanks for covering this.
Welcome to the never ending search for audio Bliss at the other end of the rabbit hole - speakers! Glad the channel is expanding! I have owned KEF 104.2 speakers for 25+ years & in those years tried similar speced speakers but the 104.2 remain my go to for 2 channel listening. Thank you for this video Andrew (s) 😂
KEF= WCS (world class speakers) !
Thanks, great video. Love my ls50 meta :)
I used subwoofers in apartments(the super poor neighborhood thin wall apartments) for years and never once had a complaint. Now, maybe I was super lucky and neighbors didn't care but I listen at very reasonable levels(~70db) and I get the feeling the subwoofer isn't impacting them at all with those volumes. Lived above people in 4 different apartments with the sub on the floor above their living rooms/bedrooms. No issues. If anyone else has had similar experiences please let me know.
That's so cool really looking forward to see you guys expand your test equipment and do more videos on more audio products, I have already said in a comment on another video and would like to say it again that it would be really nice if you guys all took your own personal daily desktop speakers and made a shootout with all of the hosts giving their impression on each of the speakers. I've bit the bullet and have gone Genelec all the way, and I own currently 5 genelec speakers, but I would love to see how they compare against JBL 305s/308s, etc
Going here tomorrow. Pretty excited.
Definitely interested in more speakers. But please keep it to this style of speaker. Ones that can be used in awkward or small rooms well, I dont need another channel showing speakers I can never own or use
These speakers still need room to breath unfortunately, you can use them in a small room but they definitely perform better at least 50cm off a back wall.
Great to hear the headphones show getting into speakers. I hope you get into Box design crossover design and tweaking.
I didn't liked the LS50, but LS50W got me. This video came out at perfect timing since my mate is looking to buy a LS50W II. This will most likely push him to getting one, and it's on sale atm.
I started in the 2 channel speaker world and have a older set of b&w matrix 802 series 3 from the nineties. I have always loved these but they need a good sized listening room. I have played them less and went to headphones as a experiment back in 2016 ish with my first set of decent headphones the he 650. I consider these classics and like a old set of super comfy shoes that you never get tired of. This headphone experiment has expanded to include me speakers ether flow open 1.1, audeze lcd x, audeze isine lcd i3 and audeze lcd 4. Yes I have been on a audeze kick as of late. My isine 10 with iPhone cipher cable and dap adjustability hooked me. So much so , i have used my original cipher cable until it broke and went out and started correcting spares since audeze no longer lmakes them as they can't get the parts. Tried th3 qudelix j5k dac/amp just for the heck of it (as they were cheap) with Isiine headphones with its adjustable eq. Like having equalizer apo for desktop in your pocket! One of the best purchaes in a while! And no issues driving the efficient lcd x and even the hd650 with their high impedance. Another brand I would be interested in is dynaudio speakers. I have come close to purchasing some of their smaller bookshelf models many times. They even make powered monitors like the ls50 wireless that could give them a run for their $$$.
KEF's are awesome and look great. I would've gotten the LS50W's myself years ago if I hadn't fallen in love with an uobtanium Chord + Raidho stack. Looking forward to you guys taking your analytical approach to loudspeakers.
Here's some trivia for you Richard Small who became famous in the loudspeaker industry for the Thiele Small parameters in 1986 was Head of Research at KEF Electronics.
I’m rocking kef q100 they are great!
IEM still the cheapest way to get micro details from music unless you can afford $10k+,$20k+ or even $50k+ on a Speaker system and still not fully satisfied but iems are a lot easier to achieve a satisfied system that most people wanted how they sounded Thank You .
from my experience , headphones is for one person enjoyment where speakers are for everyone but cost a lot more to spend , for beginners should start with second-hand speakers to experience more different brand speakers , but for party use , you don't need so high-end speakers , go klipsch or jbl ,for detail king i.e super high-end ones would be B&W and Focal that cost $10k+ with KEF i liked how it presented it's vocalist and sparkly high with flavour Thank You again Cheers Everyone .
My 10k+ rig relegated my IEM, no going back
I've always been more of a speaker guy, only recently diving into higher-end headphones and IEMs. I like headphones and IEMs because of the ability to listen on the go, and they are hard to beat in terms of tonality and detail, but in my experience, even a modest speaker system is better than high end headphones and IEMs when it comes to soundstaging.
Cool video❤
What’s the song they talked about being recorded with one microphone?
My living room system rocks vintage 104.2 and 105.2. Killer powered by Emotiva XPA-2 Gen 2.
A piece of advice for anyone now interested in buying KEF speakers:
Only buy them when they're on sale. KEF routinely puts their speakers on sale (kinda like JBL does with their consumer-oriented products) so there's no reason not to exercise a little patience and wait for such time for a good deal :)
I wish KEF return to there roots when they had much musical sound , i owned onw of the iQ models 20 years ago , nowadays KEF is more to the analytical sound
KEF LS50 vs the Cabasse Rialto? Your thoughts?
I'm so jelly I watched this twice in a row...
Would love to see more speaker content. I just started looking at speakers and the content is kind of sparse for speakers. Hard to determine value for each price point. Where as with iems and headphones its so much easier.
I would really be interested by the measurements of speakers with your BK stuff.
Irrelevant
im use marshall woburn ii. smaller and same sound
I'm really interested in the idea of "standardized" measurements of speakers on a headphone rig.
Can't be done since you are measuring the speaker - room interaction.
Well, haha, as an also_a_speakers nerd, i'd say, that you shouldn't be afraid of adding a sub. because you WILL set it as it wouldn't be heard. this is the goal and this is the way - sub couldn't be heard, but everything is fuller and meatier. trust me bro
Then you can't turn up the volume very loud because the neighbors hear the bass.
Bring back the 104/2’s !, just like KLH, JBL and Wharfdale did!
Audition KEF LS50 and 60 meta in both show room in Singapore, total disappointment, one in a crowded shopping mall without doors.
And the other one the salesman said he just eyeball the speaker placement cos he didn’t though we are serious. 😂
We end up bought others.
How KEF sound like? Good or bad?
I’m not sure..
And I thought my headphone hobby was expensive. Damn!
Kef makes interesting speakers but they never impressed me nearly as much as I expected they would but visually they are great
kef it's greatest strengths are amazing in presenting vocalist and clear sparkly high frequency but not in Focal speakers level , my older kef were lacking in not so big sound stage and power control at the same time they need high power amp driving them , without good amount of power , they sounded bad , just sharing my experience Thank You !
I'd like to see a review of the MBL 101 X-treme. One of the best speakers I've ever heard.
How's the measurement through 5128? Should be similar to the DF plot ?
It's similar yes, however we have to spoof the torso because we have the 'boot' version of the 5128.
How about useless?
@@razisn why useless? It shows how neutral headphones should look when measured on 5128.... because LS50 are neutral. No surprise why it looks like the DF plot as Andrew mentioned above...
@@TheHEADPHONEShow how close were LS50's to 5128? 1 meter? Surprised torso makes a difference from close range.
@@ccgmail8025 Because you won't be measuring the speakers but the speaker-speaker placement-listening position-room-dummy head interaction.. The results will vary wildly whenever one of these parameters change. Speakers are not measured this way but in the nearfield or in the anechoic chamber with specialised techniques to compensate for bass and driver offset (where present) and always a single speaker is measured not a stereo pair. Of course it will look like a DF plot but all DF plots do not all look the same.. Btw the LS50 are far from neutral whatever that means. LS50 Meta are 'better' but still.. Both of them are extremely bass challenged btw and too polite at the top.
Great sounding speaker. U.S. customer service when your subwoofer emits random full volume noise . . . maddening.
LS50 Wireless II are good but needs a sub desperately.
You can do all that stuff in Golden Sound's video, or you can just get a pair of KEFs
Love the comfort and sound of my kef bluetooth earbuds, except that their bluetooth implementation is terribly deficient. You cannot connect to them from one device while they are connected to another device (even if they've previously been paired with both) and there is no way to disconnect the earbuds from the other device without going to that device and choosing to disconnect. If you have them paired to your laptop, which is upstairs, and you want to use them with your phone in your pocket, you MUST first go upstairs, tell the laptop to unpair, and then your earbuds will finally allow your phone to connect. This is a frequent enough occurrence that it makes them almost unusable. I certainly would never buy them again. I cannot imagine how a company manages to ship a device with such a deficient user experience. It's like they literally never used their own earbuds prior to shipping them.
I feel like high-end lifestyle products and limited living space are somewhat opposing concepts.
The white noise in the intro be louder than those edgy bois listening to jazz with a high cut acting like a detective
My only issue with KEF is the drivers and the frequency the bass cones rip and fall apart. But they're beautiful looking cabinets and designs.
Too me this video, while well done, felt like clickbait in retrospect. It's mostly marketing and very little actual information. You kept mentioning how they told you in depth stuff but never showed any of that. The only thing I took away is that I should read their published research, of which I was not aware.
Measuring speakers on a headphone rig is measuring the particular speaker- room- speaker placement- listening position- dummy head interaction, not the speakers. Nearfield measurements is the only way to go and is used by all manufacturers who measure. I hope you were just joking when you suggested this. You can do nearfield measurements either via the expensive automatic but no-need-to-know-what-you're-doing way (Klippel) or the cheaper but you need to know very well what you are doing way (e.g. John Atkinson of Stereophile).
Yeah we're not doing 5128 speaker measurements as a substitute for ACTUAL speaker measurements. I just find it interesting.
Ah yes, the cat butthole speakers 😅 (just kidding! Maybe this is why no one sends me things LOL)
We actually have a warehouse cat who had to have it's tail amputated... but I guarantee it was NOT the inspiration for the waveguide!
Test everything that Z has in his basement!
The sub won't annoy the neighbours if it's on good quality foam absorbers.
Now all the 6XX wearing plebs are gonna be buying KEF
Audio Science Review has a review of the LS50 Meta also