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After your review of the KEF LS60 I got my self a pair, and they are just mindblowing good in our big livingroom. Soundvise, lets say the LS60 score 100. What will these very expensive speakers score?
I enjoy your channel, especially because you discuss measurements in connection with subjective evaluations and because you discuss speaker design more than most reviewers. However, I sometimes wish you would discuss design more often, especially when you have a different and interesting design. This speaker is one such example where you could have done a video just on the design because there is a lot going on here that differs from most other speakers IMHO. A coincident driver on the front baffle is not that unusual. However, it is worth mentioning that KEF appears to have pioneered (ie patented) the use of coincident drivers where they also act as a wave guide. IOW, KEF has been at this for a long time. The really interesting part is the mounting of drivers on the sides just above and below the coincident driver in order to get all the drivers to act as a single point source, something a 3-way speaker normally couldn’t do. A crap load of engineering went into this. One indication of this is the low midrange crossover point given the use of 6” or 6.5” woofers. You would normally expect a higher crossover point, but I suspect integrating the side woofers with the coincident front driver seamlessly required the low crossover point. Then there is the cabinet. The top 2 side woofers appear to be in a sealed box while the bottom 2 woofers are in a ported enclosure. This mix of sealed and ported for the same size drivers is unusual. But it doesn’t stop there. The ported part of the cabinet has 2 ports, not the usual one. One port is on the rear at the height of the lower woofers and the second is down low on the rear near the floor. This leads me to suspect that the tuning frequency of the two ports is probably different. That is just what I can see. The really impressive part is that KEF, based on your review, got all of this to work!!!! Few speakers would merit extended discussion of their designs, but this is one of them. Would love to hear you interview one of KEF’s designers about the challenges of this design. Best of luck
I can't think of a more exemplary reviewer to show me these exemplary speakers. The fact that Erin still disclaimers his potential bias in being impressed despite the review being data based demonstrates a standard that can only be applauded. And yeah, the speakers are as phenomenal as we expected lol. Thanks for the great work!
Thanks. Sometimes I feel like I over-disclaim but I try really hard to keep it real and let people form their opinions with as much knowledge as I can reasonably provide.
Agree. Erin distinguishes himself from all other online reviewers by providing both subjective and objective data. The measurements are key and are the reason that, for example, I have always enjoyed John Atkinson of Stereophile so much over the years. Measurements are a foundation that you can build on when assessing a speaker. Erin is unique in that respect, which is why I became a Patron.
I love KEF, I started 20 years ago with small KEF eggs. I had the privilege to have a day in their Kent factory and listened to REFERENCE 5's and Blades. I am now the proud owner of a pair of REFERENCE 1's 🌟
@@hypojames I won a KEF competition, so I was very lucky. I went all around the factory, the research and design areas, their anechoic chamber, the museum and more - it was fantastic day. If you are a genuine buyer they will allow you in I think, they are a working business and factory so I can't imagine KEF would allow anyone in randomly for free. Contact them and see, they may have open days.
@@chrishamilton5960 the tone is the same as the mid & top drivers are identical, there is more bass extension and the bass is a little more agile due to more woofers which gives an efficiency gain. So they sound slightly fuller and richer, yet the same tone.
My KEF Blade Two got a low-bass extension by an additional Subwoofer (SVS SB16-Ultra). Crossover at 60 Hz. Phenomenal result. Deepest precise sound image with subsonic components, if needed - and less effort of mid-bass reproduction. By the way, given a certain audio material (3D recording & mixing, crosstalk-cancelation), the Blade is able to project a closed acoustical holo-cocoon around the listener. The sound of this (psychological) cocoon fits directly to the listener's skin - it doesn't commence beyond the loudspeaker distance . . .
Love it! Not that I'd ever spend that kind of money, the Reference Meta is my end game. I especially appreciate the scientific approach KEF takes among other brands (Revel being another) to their high end speakers. It's great to see all that extra money isn't only speaker "jewelry" but to improve resonance, dispersion etc. There's going to be so many butt-hurt individuals but keep'em coming!
Agreed, Kef, revel, JBL are a few. I would say Magico and Vivid are also engineering based but drift off into the cost no object exotic realm at the same time.
These speakers are expensive, but if you really want them they aren't completely unreachable. At the same time I don't see any reason for speakers beyond this one. I doubt the Blade 1 would be really worth it for example.
I love how you are starting to creep into the high end. I think more speakers of this caliber need to be tested. So much lack of transparency in the industry. If you can find the capital or get someone to loan it to you I would love to see more reviews like this. Maybe a magico A series or a wilson sabrina X would be another cool thing to test out. Also, Cabasse is making some crazy active speakers that have insane specs but I wonder how accurate they are. Might be worth checking out their pearl series, especially if you like point source designs.
I’ve emailed both Magico and Wilson (many times, recently) and not heard back. I think the best option here is for those who are interested in purchasing these kind of speakers is to email the company and request they send me a pair to review. Otherwise, they tend to think my audience doesn’t spend that kind of money (two “high end” manufacturers have explicitly said this to me in the last year).
you are to be commended for investigating a very high end speaker. anyone seriously reviewing speakers via quantitative techniques (instrumentation / data collection & analysis / facility) as you have ought to include a very high end ($$$s & perf) set like these Blades. it is quite valuable to perform both relativistic & absolute comparative listening & empirical tests - independent of the price range or even target mkt (while respecting the many distinct intents of the various mkt segments!). among the benefits is identifying issues related to the test rig & procedures that might bear attention (or be confirmed as just fine). rotating those "halo" reference speakers over time could further everyone's insight to the numerous designs, segments & price-regimes. @@ErinsAudioCorner
The manufacturer's of Magico and Wilson may not care what youtube viewers think or afraid to be measured. Most of their customers are not checking youtube for measurements. They think they are intelligent enough to make decisions of their money without looking any measurements. As long as their customers willing to pay premium to get premium service such as in home seto up offered by PS Audio.
@@ErinsAudioCorner Then Magico and Wilson don't have a clue of the sophistication of your viewers. Data, assessment, optimization of best practices ... "this is the way".
The one I want to see on the kipple… don’t laugh is the RTJ 410. The “tower of power” with the 4 stacked 18” woofers looks so crazy I just want to see measurements. Audioholics has some but I would love to see more and then combined with the subs.
Heard these speakers at a HiFi show a few months back. They were powered by some serious amplification, but good f***ing god were they good. My friend and I were blown away. If you want a stereo setup and can somehow afford these I will recommend them without reservation. This Hifi show had speakers and setups in excess of £250,000 and these stole the show without question. Nice video as always Erin, love your work.
Agreed. I heard YG Acoustics ($110k at the time) and the Blade 1 at the same AXPONA and the Blade 1 sounded so much better, and I was using the same source material.
@@freddymcculloch6811 depends on the room and placement I would think. Demos I've heard of both Blade 2 and Blade "1" did not include subs and I did not feel anything was lacking.
Own the Reference 5s which are basically the blade 2 with a normal box. Listened to both and determined the 5s were a little more tunable in my room. Love the KEF brand and value for money and very pleased with mine. Great review Erin.
Got to check out a pair of these at my local hifi store. They absolutely blew me away. Sadly can’t afford them right now, but I will have a pair one day! For now I’ve got a pair of R11 Metas on the way! Super stoked to get them set up! Keep making awesome content! 🔥
This is a master class review. I love your objective and subjective breakdown. I'm interested in the kef reference series and your reviews are definitely helping me make a decision. Keep up the good work. Honestly your channel is 🔥
Thanks for the honest review, Erin. I went from the KEF R11s directly to the Blade 2 (massive jump).The Blades do require a bit of placement- tweaking and quality amplification. I also tried them with a pair of Subs (not needed in my opinion) and didn't like the results. Their ability to cast sound vertically is what sold me, compared to other higher-end speakers that I listened to and failed in that department. The Blades just play the music without calling any particular attention to themselves. I am skeptical of Speakers that do that and whether they can provide enjoyment over the long haul, like the Blade 2 can. Side comment: The Blade 1 requires a larger listening area than the Blade 2. Cheers
Really great review. I have the Reference 3 Meta and have a hard time believing I can get much better without spending a fortune. I love the KEF sound. The Blade sure are tempting though.
I think you are correct. You are in that good performance to dollar ratio. If I owned the Ref 3 I would probably skip the blade. I would be looking for used Vivid giya speakers. As a Kef fan you will enjoy vivid as they sound similar but more goooderrrr in technical terms.
At 66 I think these are the best looking speaker I have ever seen and would love to own a pair in black with the gold cones. I am a believer in point source drivers.
You are a man with real passion and honest so please don't listen to anything or anyone tried to let you down with no real reason or argument , So please keep doing what you already doing because we know that you are honest man .
Your subjective impressions and test data for the KEF Blade 2 Meta confirms the excellent results obtained by other reviewers, such as Stereophile, The Absolute Sound and HiFi News. Thank you for providing detailed and science backed equipment evaluations.
I agree with you on every bit! I also was absolutely mind bogled when I heard the blades I used to work in a high end store and the original blade 2 was my favourite even though we had speakers of up to €120k/pair. The way they put this enormously wide, holographic soundstage together with the huge dynamic and low end capability is just sheer perfection. The design is just pure form follows function with perfect results.
@@bryantai747 I also own the 4367. Make sure you listen to Kef for yourself. I demoed the non meta blade 2, the Reference 5 and 3 and thought they all sounded pretty dull. Vocals lacked the transparency of the JBLs and the highs were even farther behind and pretty meh. Not sure how much change there was between the older and newer kefs. Maybe a lot… maybe marketing, I am truly unsure. The 4367 sounds a lot less reproduced. My guess is there is some transient response differences not showing up in the measurements (look at the efficiency and impedance curves). Maybe the kefs need silly amounts of power to come alive. If you demo the kefs I would love to hear your opinion. Hard to argue with the measurements of the kefs but I find the 4367 much more enjoyable. I honestly wonder if Erin had both 4367 speakers or did he just have one in mono for a single night, I can’t remember (could have been the M2 he only had one of). A better upgrade path would be adding subs with a proper highpass to your JBLs. Subs take mine to a whole other level. But yes this review made me second guess my Kef demo and I will seek another.
@@christianrogers2355 lol. That’s how I feel about the Dyn. They’re good. But they’re always adding their own “flavor” and I find I prefer a more neutral speaker. Doesn’t mean I don’t like other speakers, but if I’m spending my money, then I’m most likely going to spend it on one that doesn’t alter the sound of the music I’m listening to on purpose.
I don't believe you. You are justifying your out lay. There is not a lot between non Meta and Meta speakers. Then I have to question your age because as we age our hearing deteriates. By the time we are 30 we can't hear above 16,000hz. Women can hear upto 20, 000 hz. Then that depends on the individual. A slight difference for the Meta, but the BS of marketing can make you believe different, and marketing gives you desire. As a once sells person once I sold you desire I had the sell.
@@michaeloconnor9465 The lower treble region extends down to 4khz, the entire region on up is a lot cleaner subjectively and better integrated with the mids which also subjectively sound clearer--no small feat. The xover is completely redesigned a well. Kef took many years to come up with an improved Blade they weren't just sitting on the hands making up marketing BS. i have several hundred hours now on the Blade Metas and owned the previous model, how about you?
Thank you for the great review. Really appreciate both the data and your listening thoughts. Although these speakers are out of my reach, I enjoy hearing/reading and learning more about the leading edge of our passion. Currently happy with my R3ms, but looking at R7m and R11ms.
Sweeeet! Makes me feel good about my kef Q series from 20 years ago, good on kef for having halo product after halo product, with solid entry level stuff that’s also gorgeous in any context.
This is praise from you, absolutely. I've never even remotely considered these speakers... until this review. I feel like what you're saying is these are better than the JBL 4367, which changes everything for my end-game speaker top 5 list.
You should demo for yourself. You might have a different outcome. As a mainstream brand a Kef demo should be pretty easy. I would assume a demo of the JBLs will be a lot harder, I had to buy mine blind. I own the 4367 and have demoed the blade 2 (reference line too) and came away pretty lukewarm on the Kef. Specifically the Kef Reference 3 (same price as the 4367) just sounded kind of veiled. While the big JBLs just make everything seem less reproduced. I will chalk it up to a bad demo of the kefs , hard to argue with the amazing measurements of the blade. The one place the kefs are a lot better is sound stage depth. The sound stage on the JBL is all in front of the speaker with very little depth. The Kef blade has a nice depth of soundstage and disappear as a source far better than the 4367s (I mean look at the two…) As a whole the 4367s dig out dynamics where I thought there were none. Even old 80s hard rock/metal comes to life on the JBL. Maybe I will buy a used pair of blades (a few on audiomart) and do a direct A/B. I was a big revel fan until I did a direct A/B of the 228be and 4367 in my own room/system… now I am less of a fan of Revel and no longer an owner lol… the Revel is a great speaker but the JBL is the closest I have come to that “real” sound. I believe that real sound is hidden in the transient response. Maybe that shows up in the compression data. I would love to see how these speakers produce a square wave. Back with headphones dot com did headphones measurements a lot could be determined from the square wave. Maybe in a direct A/B I would eat my words and be on the Kef train, hard to say.
@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm , all sounds good. Truth is, it would be hard as all hell for me to give up the idea of a pair of 4367s in my living room. So no arguments from me.
Borresen X6's would be a great speaker to get a hold of at around this price point considering how much praise they are getting and apparent value for money. Anything from the Borresen X line would be a great review idea I think!
Bought these from bestbiy in blue 2 years ago. Been waiting on reviews. I dont think ill ever ask for another speaker. Looks qmazing, sounds the business, I'm done for a long time
Great speaker, very nice review. You are a beacon, like only few others as ASR for example, in a sea of pure subjectivists and audiophools. Expensive speaker, true, but here you get what you are paying for, not like in many purely design-wise good speakers.
Erin, I enjoy watching your channel. After your review of the Blades I went to my new pair of Audiovector QR3 SE speakers and put them to the test with "Wanna Be Startin' Something". I could hear that "click" distinctly. After I put on Shirley Bassey's "Something Else" album and listened to her version of "It's Impossible". In this track is a subtle, very fast "tick, tick, tick" hanging above the orchestra...my speakers passed the test. Try Shirley Bassey's song. Would love to know if you can hear it.
The great thing about KEF is that they keep upgrading their bottom line speakers and implementing some of the technology in their reference and Meta series into their value lines. Right now the LS 60 wiresless are on sale for 5k per pair, 1400 watts of power, just add a steamer, and you're done! Allot of the Q towers are vastly price reduced now. My assumption is they will be discontinuing these models and implementing some sort of a "meta-Q driver" upgraded version of these speakers soon, just my opinion but if they do that they're gonna be kicking some serious ass over any similarly priced speakers. I had a pair of 105.2s in the mid 80s, now I have the Q series in a 7.2.4 system with Martin Logan subs and love it! I look forward to upgrading my speakers in the next year or 2. Probably own KEF for life. Thanks for the info!
Great review!! That 200hz might be preferable spot if any just for separating the bass and midrange based on watching videos regarding mixing. I think with something this high end with tight tolerances increases speaker to speaker matching phase, FR etc. don’t hear much about this but I think it maybe a big factor in clarity imaging etc etc (taking the room out of the equation). Job well done as usual and thank you!!
So, the up-to-date (2023 and forward) speakers do something I've never seen in a set of speakers, which is entirely takes away the "sweet seat" effect, which is a good thing, IMHO. My wife and I can sit on entirely opposite ends of the couch and hear the same thing as if we were sitting in the middle of the couch. How they do that, I don't know. I sat through the demo at Audio Advice Live in Raleigh 2023. After I listened for a few minutes and even brought up this sweet seat fact, the guy kneeled down beside the couch and said, "Could you see yourself spending $35,000 on these speakers?" I said, "I could, but I won't." It's been 9 months or so now, and quite frankly, my mind keeps coming back to these speakers. If I am willing to spend $13 on Lascalas, if I could get a deal on a set of these, I might just be willing to do it. After all, this is like buying a boat. It's the same thing. But, it's in fact cheaper than a boat. My wife keeps telling me my HiFi is my boat.
$30 grand is a pretty serious chunk of change but still a lot less than some flagships. It's rare to see such an unequivocal amount of approval on here though so these have to be something pretty special. Nice job, KEF.
I have heard and owned A LOT of speakers, and I've been deep in the hobby about 40 years. The original KEF Blade was at AXPONA 2011 and it is the best speaker I have ever heard at any price point playing my own records/CDs/SACDs. The one time I have heard the Blade II Meta, they were set up improperly in a Best Buy (Kennesaw GA) and did not impress - the staff had EQed them to death, and I could not play my own cd demo discs. re: Michael Jackson track - I think you're talking about that faint click-click noise in the right channel, I caught it on headphones but would have surely missed it if not for your description.
The KEF blade 2 meta on the biggest Hegel intergrated at the iear audio show was the best sound I ever heard in my life. I hunt that sound till this day. I don't have 60k to spend😅
@@jillbraser9302 25k for the speakers and another 10-13k for the amp. With the rest of the stuff it might have been 45-50k and that is with decent deals.
Once again excellent, excellent review, Erin. You do a terrific job of explaining what these measurements mean, especially regarding how they will be audible to someone hearing them in their listening space. The one question I have is regarding the Blade 2's efficiency. I have a Purifi Eigentact which puts out around 130-140 wpc into 8 ohms, and I'm wondering if that would be sufficient for most rooms. Not that I'll ever be able to afford these. But I do play Powerball from time to time. 🤤🤤
Yup, I listened to these speakers at my local dealer and it kinda wrecked me. I now compare everything else to these. I know audio memory isn't great but these were my favorite by a wide margin. By contrast, the KEF powered LS60s were very dull and uninteresting to me so I ended up deciding to let my existing Ryan 620s stay in my room for another 5-6 years then try again later. Don't listen to these without knowing the price because it may be disappointing like eating regular hamburger after eating a perfectly cooked melt in your mouth flavorful steak.
Looking good is subjective, while i love the look of these beauties, my wife hates them 🤪 So they probably will never end up in my room. That said, the best speakers i’ve ever heard are the Blumenhofer Gran Gioia 2x16. Those wiped the floor subjectively with the blade meta’s. The best soundstage i’ve ever experienced were from a set of Illumnia Magister MK2, mind blowingly great. Love the review, love the speakers! For now I’m sticking with my DIY speakers and Hegel H390 🥰
They'd be a fantastic platform for Erin to go down the rabbit hole of amplifier sonics. I suspect these absolutely thrive on as much power as possible. The coax being high passed in the mid-band, and spreading the bottom end across the four drivers ... just dig it.
What about a waterfall plot, which shows things like decay/ringing and resonance nodes? The kind of measurement and plot that Danny Richie at GR-Research does in his speaker testing. Do you ever do those plots or graphs? I'd be curious to see that for this speaker, to see just how good it is in that regard!
As speakers get better and better, the need to playing music back in surround becomes essential. Two channels are a serious limitation as speakers like the KEF come down in price and offer flat frequency response and other objective perfections etc... You can widen the soundstage with your surround settings and not tipping and towing the speaker from ideal. I wonder how the LS60's hang with the Blades, previous experience was the LS60's were right there with the standard Blades. thanks for the review, great work
@@AnotherAnonymousMan Yes, I skipped through because I don't need an explanation on how the speaker is designed. What did I miss other than his desire for a wide soundstage which is trait of a flawed speaker. More is not always better. Did he mention the LS60? oh well not sure why you asked.
For myself at this price point, I'd go for a Kii 3 system because of it's built in DSP for room adaptability, the fact that absolutely first-rate amplification is also built in, and the available matching DAC/control unit and bass module. That said, these things are phenomenally impressive -- it's hard to imagine a better passive floor-stander!
The Kii 3 are a great all-in-one solution and very versatile. But there are still a lot of enthusiasts with preamps/amps they have invested in and want to keep. And with the smooth/even directivity inherent in the Blade 2 Meta, you can easily EQ for personal preference and/or room correction via a newer or older standalone DSP/room correction system. Erin has tested and reviewed the Kii 3 and was definitely impressed. But he didn't seem quite as enthusiastic about them compared to these KEFs, though he does have a bit of a bias for KEFs concentric drivers. He was even using a pair of the earlier KEF 5" midrange/tweeter concentric drivers in custom fabricated A-pillars above his dash in one of his custom car audio systems years ago! 😛 He also tried the 5" concentric midrange/tweeter BMS 5CN162 in the same car which use a compression driver for the HF. He likes what they do and so do I. ;)
@@bbfoto7248 -- I'm a fan of concentric mid-tweeters too. On my retirement budget, that means a pair of Kali Audio IN-8s with an IN-5 center channel and not Kii (or Genelec of Neumann), so there's that. Then there's the fact that I don't have the room (or a suitable top-notch amp) for big floor-standers, so Kii (or Genelec of Neumann) makes more sense as a big-$$$ speaker purchase should my hypothetical lottery winnings not be quite enough to buy a bigger abode along with a major system upgrade. 😎
@@editorjuno I'm with you, mate. As long as your main listening room isn't too large you can put together a fantastic system on almost "beer budget" money these days by using good active studio monitors and a decent streamer or BT receiver. I'm actually using the Kali Audio IN-8 v2 in my simple bedroom setup combined with an iFi ZEN Blue v2 Bluetooth Receiver with balanced outputs and LDAC 990kbps wireless connection via my Android smartphone or a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ that I use as my "music server" to play local files from the internal 1tb microSD card or via streaming services. I even have a cheap Numark TTX-USB DJ turntable connected to the Kali IN-8v2 for spinning vinyl, although it rarely gets used. It has a built-in phono preamp...definitely not great, but good enough for casual listening in that type of setup. I had bought the TTX-USB with a dedicated mono 78rpm cartridge/stylus just so I could could rip and archive about 80 of my grandparents' and great aunt's musical performances they had recorded in the late 1940's to 60's on a Home Record-Cutting machine! I didn't even know they existed, ha! Crazy. Look up Rek-O-Kut, Cromwell, or Recordio home disc-cutting machines from as early as the 1930's. I needed the variable speed & pitch control of the TTX DJ turntable b/c the speed of the "78" RPM home record-cutting machine was way off and it had long since disappeared. Once I completed that endeavor, I purchased an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge for this turntable for standard 33 & 45 rpm stereo LPs. I've got a better vinyl rig in the main system, though streaming is still used way more often just out of convenience. I've also been using the Neumann KH120AG monitors in my home recording studio since 2013 as my secondary monitors for a no-subwoofer mix check option and they still impress me every day for what they do in such a small, compact package. But those are used in nearfield only. The greatest cost/performance ratio can be obtained via the many excellent DIY speaker designs that are available now...that is IF you have the extra time, skills, and tools/workshop to support a DIY endeavor. Many of the Jeff Bagby and Troels Gravesen DIY loudspeaker designs are a great start and will easily outperform commercially available speakers costing 2x-4x more. But for most people, any of the more recently available "good" active studio monitor or powered loudspeaker systems are an easy "fast-track" to great sound, and the various Kali Audio offerings hard very hard to beat in their price bracket. Most of these types of active studio monitors also incorporate a decent compliment of built-in low-shelf & high-shelf EQ "trim" controls to account for various in-room placement scenarios as well as personal preference.
I was thinking maybe I could stretch to the Reference 3 Metas, but these... well perhaps if I sell my place and move to a cheaper place out of the city I could use some of the difference for a pair of these. I do think they look awesome.
If I were you I'd pay money to leave the city, the fact that you actually come out ahead while leaving the city has me baffled why anyone wouldn't unless there were very specific reasons that could not possibly be dealt with any other way. Cities are broken.
Looks like you've initiated the self-destruct button on ASR by mixing your opinion with measurements. Lot's of exploded heads and claw marks. You are doing something right. :)
ASR is cancer... No discourse there can be had like humans and the website owner encourages inflammatory nonsense as he partakes in that himself too... I'm glad Erin isn't part of that platform again... Pathetic lot
For the same price you can get a pair of Genelec 8361A monitor + W371 woofer system. Flat from 20 to 20k and have cardioid bass. Plus you save money on amp and dac. And you get built in room correction and EQ. I think you should hold off buying until you hear some competitor around the same price.
@@botwally2954 to me, the KEF image better. Everything sounds like it is actually coming from the same point in space. Noticeably, the bass sounds right there with all the other instruments. It’s an experience I’ve never heard with any other speaker capable of this kind of output across the entire spectrum. Of course; this is all sighted. But if I’m paying $30k and the data shows two really good options, I’m going to go with the one that I prefer, sighted.
Simple math: 5" driver to produce 110dB/1m would require ~0.56mm xmax and ~0.177mm for 110dB/1m and ~1.77mm for 120dB/1m. The center tweeter took some Sd out so the required xmax mignt meed a bit more. For a 3 way design I think it's hard to make it audible.
Yes the center removes a ton, renders it essentially a disc radiator. I would suspect a diffractive component may be generated with variable edge exposure ... it would all sum at the same frequency on axis. How significant that would be, unclear. I trust KEF's efforts to steer way clear.
Hi Erin, thanks again for your excellent review. Can you comment on the comparison with the Dutch & Dutch 8c? Obviously the amplification needs to be set aside somehow in such a comparison. However, I am under the impression that the Kef Blade 2 Meta review was more or less amplification independent as well, as influence of that was not mentioned.
@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm you can never get away from EQ completely because all recordings are not created equal you can't expect your amplifier and speakers to get to a level of expense that EQ becomes a non-issue
I’m surprised Amir hasn’t yet since he owns a pair. At any rate, they do have their SPIN data published. Lots of “steps” in the DI but most likely attributed to the vertical distribution of drive units and not an issue with horizontal dispersion (I’d hope).
The salons have enough data imo, and are now officially discontinued. The salon II have more damped highs to my ear (beryllium benefits are real) and lead to a cleaner sound. They also reach lower. I imagine Erin would like the soundstage better on the Blade. Me, I am a horn guy now, I don’t need soundstage, just kick those details down my throat lol.
@@ErinsAudioCorner yes I was thinking about that exact thing when I saw the controlled directivity. If you think about it all your “favorite” speakers have controlled directivity recently. Maybe there is something to it. I was once a wider is better guy, now not so much. I think controlled is cleaner with less room coloration for better or worse.
I'm lucky to own Blade 2 first gen version. There might be better speakers (like the new meta) but speaker wise I'm good. Even the first gen without meta, speaker is so good I don't want to change. I have heard lot of speakers. Even worked at the hifi retail shop part of my life. Selling B&W etc. I love these speakers. Pair it with GOOD amp and GOOD room with some acoustic design. I have done that and I love them.
That's how I feel about my pair of Reference 1 non metas. Are there better speakers out there?...probably, but very very few, and I'm after about 5 years with them still completely satisfied.
I would love if you could get your hands on Aerial Acoustics 10T's. Hearing those was the first time I understood why audiophiles are neurotic about sound quality. The 10T's presented uncanny realism I didn't know was possible
As a Blade One owner they need a lot of juice, at least 300 WPC into 4 0hms. The Blade 2 is 2db less sensitive, they need at least the same if not more power! I'm not a head banger but I do like to hear symphonic music with dynamics reasonably close to what I hear live. Yes, the moon amps would pair nicely.
How would you objectively explain why the Blade is able to reproduce those sounds you mentioned from those two tracks so much better than the other speakers? Is it lower distortion? A bump in response in the frequencies those sounds are in? Better match in response between the pair of speakers giving them better imaging? Room interaction? I have heard you explain brightness using measurements; is it possible to explain these examples in a similar way? Excellent review as usual. Thank you!
I think it's their amazing phase & timing coherence. They are SO coherent that the tiniest change in pitch is easily detected. Off-center vinyl will drive you bananas on these speakers.
@@thomosburn8740 @hifihometheater Agreed. When you see such smoothness in the amplitude response/FR and ERDI, plus low distortion, and no issues through the crossover regions, it really points to a speaker with really good phase coherency and impulse response/timing. Low compression/good dynamic range also means those attributes remain intact. In addition, when you measure FR that is this smooth, it usually points to BOTH the Left & Right speakers matching very closely in this regard, which further improves the pinpoint focus and Separation/space between each element in the soundstage without smearing underlying details.
@@ErinsAudioCorner I just learned about the planned new Renault 5 electric. My current work place is planned for demolition and rebuild, so I may have to get a car for the temporary relocation. Given a choice, I'd rather go on using public transport and spend the money on speakers. 🤣
I just auditioned these. Hyper expensive gear usually doesn’t appeal to me; I prefer to find more affordable gear that performs above its price point. But if I had the money, I would buy these in a heartbeat. The aesthetics and the sound suit my preferences perfectly.
I truly appreciate all your work Erin; looks damn good!😉 .. 🤔I wonder how the 30k Aspens would compare, or how the 1's would change in data and sound. Edit: I just tech compared the 1&2 Blade Metas on their website. That extra 5" in height and that big increase in extra weight may be impossible to set up for test in your house!😂😉 At almost 19 K per speaker after tax, I hope nobody claims that they need subwoofers for stereo listening.😂😂
I would love to see how these compare to the KEF Reference 3 Meta. Those are my absolute dream speakers. I just can’t quite get myself to like the blades.
I got to hear the Blade 2 in Tokyo last weekend and they are pretty impressive. Of course being a DIY open baffle fan, they wouldn't really be for me but for a box (monopole) speaker, they did really well. We also heard the Muon and between the two I would choose the Blade over it both acoustically and cosmetically. As for the modulation distortion on the Blade, no, the cone excursion will be tiny compared to the wavelength of anything from even the upper range of the tweeter due to the 500+ Hz crossover like you mentioned. Also, it's not like the tweeter itself is modulating and the direct radiation from it on axis isn't really going to be significantly impacted by the motion of the wave guide created by the midrange cone even if that cone motion were more significant.
Kal Rubinson replaced his Revel Studio 2s with these, so I’m sure they’re outstanding. It’s unfortunate though that you have to spend $30k to get this level of performance. Not sure I could ever justify buying a new pair, but maybe a good used or demo set. I would really like to hear these next to the Reference 5 to see how significant the differences are. Perhaps throw the JBL 4367 in there as well.
I was thinking the same! Lol. That's IF most musicians are around for the final mix or mastering. If people only knew how little most "artists" are involved in the production of modern music. LOVE Erin's reviews and he probably swung me from saving for Perlistens to getting some KEFs. They are more "room friendly" which many audiophiles don't seem to understand. I don't want my living room to look like my studio with subs, cables, amps all over.
Love the Blade 2. Best I've personally experienced is the Wilson Audio Chronosonic XVX, which were mind boggling, but they're just not realistic unless you have "I'll just build an addition to the house" money when you're speaker shopping.
Will try it out, I bought the blade ones a month ago and struggling to put it in a room that is 20 by 11, so I’m using the long so they won’t be so close to the walls next to it. I used to have the ref 5 non meta a they were fantastic but the blades are just something different. Everything is smoother more accurate and less in you face if that makes sense.
My Adam Audio S3Vs resolved that "percussive scratch" quite nicely - it was in the right channel, for sure, but a little to the left and just above the right speaker.
Superb video Erin, loved the breakdown and coaxial education. My only critique is that we didn't get more B-roll of these beauties. Question, do you think DSP/DSP XO would address any of the issues you noted?
As always excellent review from Erin. However, one important fact is missing from the review. How far away from side walls were the speakers? The reason I am saying this is that in uk hifi shows where rooms are smaller, i always found KEF reference speakers sounding much better than either Blade 1 or Blade 2. Since technical aspects of the Blades are, in theory, better than KEF reference speakers, i assume that distance from side walls is the reason why they sound worse in smaller rooms. I just came back from Munich HiFi show and I think that there are much better speakers than KEF Blades and Reference boxes, albeit at much more money. Just try to listen to Raidho TD6 reference speaker. Ok, it costs 210k Euro, so 7 times more than Blade 2, but it is the closest i had ever been to real accustic music. I mean classical, opera and Jazz. My home system is about 5k dollars at current prices, so i am not trying to boast about something i can not afford, but if you ever have a chance to listen to Raidho (or Borresen), you should. It kicks other high end speakers like Magico, Wilson, Rockport, Marten, Gryphon, Sonus Faber, Kharma, Avalon, CAD, Eggleston, Estelon, Zellaton etc. into dust. I include here Wilson Chronosonic, never mind speakers lower down the range (although Wilson Alexia and Dave had excellent show in Munich driven by VTL and Constallation amps, if i can recal). Anyway, on planet earth KEF speakers like Ref 5 and 3 (i always disliked Ref 1 after hearing it dozen times) and Blades and B&W and Von Schwaikert are the real choices if you want great hifi instead of BMW.
Could you do a simple comparison to the Dutch and Dutch 8c. Which would be better in circumstances/ rooms/ listening levels x and y, vs the other in a and b
What affect do these side mounted woofers have on the sound? I've been seeing these types of designs a lot in recent years. It seems to me like it would result in a blurry, slurred type of low end due to the distances and time difference between the near and far ends of the cones all emanating at once, not to mention odd directivity patterns. I have similar concerns about the newer Genelecs with the woofers that apparently radiate from those weird little slots. Or is none of this an issue in practice and everything plays nicely in the real world?
Re that little percussion sound - you're probably hearing it "better" than the original producers did, and perhaps, if they had access to the Blades, they would have dialled it back. 😉
Thanks so much for the review! I was really looking forward to this one. You did a great job… And you got bigger balls than I do hoisting a $15k speaker up there. “Butt puckering” cracked me up. Really wish you best of luck in getting yourself you dream speakers. Start a go fund me. If you get even 1k of your subs to pitch in $10 you’re 1/3 of the way there.
![[UA] Eternal Fire проти NAVI | EPL Season 20 Malta](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/chvlsDygrZM/mqdefault.jpg)
Whoops! I said the midrange crossover is 550Hz. It’s 450Hz. My bad!
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No love for the Tannoy dual concentric drivers?
After your review of the KEF LS60 I got my self a pair, and they are just mindblowing good in our big livingroom. Soundvise, lets say the LS60 score 100. What will these very expensive speakers score?
I think you heard the PerListen S7t too right… any thoughts between the two… similar pricing if I am not wrong.
I enjoy your channel, especially because you discuss measurements in connection with subjective evaluations and because you discuss speaker design more than most reviewers. However, I sometimes wish you would discuss design more often, especially when you have a different and interesting design. This speaker is one such example where you could have done a video just on the design because there is a lot going on here that differs from most other speakers IMHO.
A coincident driver on the front baffle is not that unusual. However, it is worth mentioning that KEF appears to have pioneered (ie patented) the use of coincident drivers where they also act as a wave guide. IOW, KEF has been at this for a long time. The really interesting part is the mounting of drivers on the sides just above and below the coincident driver in order to get all the drivers to act as a single point source, something a 3-way speaker normally couldn’t do. A crap load of engineering went into this. One indication of this is the low midrange crossover point given the use of 6” or 6.5” woofers. You would normally expect a higher crossover point, but I suspect integrating the side woofers with the coincident front driver seamlessly required the low crossover point.
Then there is the cabinet. The top 2 side woofers appear to be in a sealed box while the bottom 2 woofers are in a ported enclosure. This mix of sealed and ported for the same size drivers is unusual. But it doesn’t stop there. The ported part of the cabinet has 2 ports, not the usual one. One port is on the rear at the height of the lower woofers and the second is down low on the rear near the floor. This leads me to suspect that the tuning frequency of the two ports is probably different. That is just what I can see.
The really impressive part is that KEF, based on your review, got all of this to work!!!! Few speakers would merit extended discussion of their designs, but this is one of them. Would love to hear you interview one of KEF’s designers about the challenges of this design.
Best of luck
have you listened to a set of emotiva speakers? I will be replacing my defTech with them as they are so much cleaner and crisper them my defTech.
I can't think of a more exemplary reviewer to show me these exemplary speakers.
The fact that Erin still disclaimers his potential bias in being impressed despite the review being data based demonstrates a standard that can only be applauded.
And yeah, the speakers are as phenomenal as we expected lol. Thanks for the great work!
Thanks. Sometimes I feel like I over-disclaim but I try really hard to keep it real and let people form their opinions with as much knowledge as I can reasonably provide.
Agree. Erin distinguishes himself from all other online reviewers by providing both subjective and objective data. The measurements are key and are the reason that, for example, I have always enjoyed John Atkinson of Stereophile so much over the years. Measurements are a foundation that you can build on when assessing a speaker.
Erin is unique in that respect, which is why I became a Patron.
I love KEF, I started 20 years ago with small KEF eggs. I had the privilege to have a day in their Kent factory and listened to REFERENCE 5's and Blades. I am now the proud owner of a pair of REFERENCE 1's 🌟
How did you get a tour around the kef factory? Its only 20miles from my house and I would love to go and see it
@@hypojames I won a KEF competition, so I was very lucky. I went all around the factory, the research and design areas, their anechoic chamber, the museum and more - it was fantastic day. If you are a genuine buyer they will allow you in I think, they are a working business and factory so I can't imagine KEF would allow anyone in randomly for free. Contact them and see, they may have open days.
I thought the Reference 5s sounded better to my ears. What did you think?
@@chrishamilton5960 the tone is the same as the mid & top drivers are identical, there is more bass extension and the bass is a little more agile due to more woofers which gives an efficiency gain. So they sound slightly fuller and richer, yet the same tone.
@@SimonSalloway1 Which is what I prefer.
My KEF Blade Two got a low-bass extension by an additional Subwoofer (SVS SB16-Ultra). Crossover at 60 Hz. Phenomenal result. Deepest precise sound image with subsonic components, if needed - and less effort of mid-bass reproduction.
By the way, given a certain audio material (3D recording & mixing, crosstalk-cancelation), the Blade is able to project a closed acoustical holo-cocoon around the listener. The sound of this (psychological) cocoon fits directly to the listener's skin - it doesn't commence beyond the loudspeaker distance . . .
Love it! Not that I'd ever spend that kind of money, the Reference Meta is my end game. I especially appreciate the scientific approach KEF takes among other brands (Revel being another) to their high end speakers. It's great to see all that extra money isn't only speaker "jewelry" but to improve resonance, dispersion etc. There's going to be so many butt-hurt individuals but keep'em coming!
😅
Agreed, Kef, revel, JBL are a few. I would say Magico and Vivid are also engineering based but drift off into the cost no object exotic realm at the same time.
These speakers are expensive, but if you really want them they aren't completely unreachable. At the same time I don't see any reason for speakers beyond this one. I doubt the Blade 1 would be really worth it for example.
@@KoeiNL
If the room and listening habits needed more bottom end, it would likely be worth it.
@@FOH3663 at the levels the Blade 2 lacks output just adding good subs would probably do more.
I love how you are starting to creep into the high end. I think more speakers of this caliber need to be tested. So much lack of transparency in the industry. If you can find the capital or get someone to loan it to you I would love to see more reviews like this. Maybe a magico A series or a wilson sabrina X would be another cool thing to test out. Also, Cabasse is making some crazy active speakers that have insane specs but I wonder how accurate they are. Might be worth checking out their pearl series, especially if you like point source designs.
I’ve emailed both Magico and Wilson (many times, recently) and not heard back.
I think the best option here is for those who are interested in purchasing these kind of speakers is to email the company and request they send me a pair to review. Otherwise, they tend to think my audience doesn’t spend that kind of money (two “high end” manufacturers have explicitly said this to me in the last year).
you are to be commended for investigating a very high end speaker.
anyone seriously reviewing speakers via quantitative techniques (instrumentation / data collection & analysis / facility) as you have ought to include a very high end ($$$s & perf) set like these Blades. it is quite valuable to perform both relativistic & absolute comparative listening & empirical tests - independent of the price range or even target mkt (while respecting the many distinct intents of the various mkt segments!). among the benefits is identifying issues related to the test rig & procedures that might bear attention (or be confirmed as just fine). rotating those "halo" reference speakers over time could further everyone's insight to the numerous designs, segments & price-regimes. @@ErinsAudioCorner
The manufacturer's of Magico and Wilson may not care what youtube viewers think or afraid to be measured. Most of their customers are not checking youtube for measurements. They think they are intelligent enough to make decisions of their money without looking any measurements. As long as their customers willing to pay premium to get premium service such as in home seto up offered by PS Audio.
@@ErinsAudioCorner
Then Magico and Wilson don't have a clue of the sophistication of your viewers.
Data, assessment, optimization of best practices ... "this is the way".
The one I want to see on the kipple… don’t laugh is the RTJ 410. The “tower of power” with the 4 stacked 18” woofers looks so crazy I just want to see measurements. Audioholics has some but I would love to see more and then combined with the subs.
Excellent in-depth explanation of the Blade's. The best I have seen in fact. Well done.
Wow, thanks!
Appreciate all your reviews with detailed measurements.
Waiting from you the reviews for super deton and SVS 6.5 evolution bookshelf.
Heard these speakers at a HiFi show a few months back. They were powered by some serious amplification, but good f***ing god were they good. My friend and I were blown away. If you want a stereo setup and can somehow afford these I will recommend them without reservation. This Hifi show had speakers and setups in excess of £250,000 and these stole the show without question. Nice video as always Erin, love your work.
Agreed. I heard YG Acoustics ($110k at the time) and the Blade 1 at the same AXPONA and the Blade 1 sounded so much better, and I was using the same source material.
I heard some blades at best buy and they vibrated my insides like I was at a concert. Couldn't ask for more 👌
Do you really need a sub with these?
@@freddymcculloch6811 depends on the room and placement I would think. Demos I've heard of both Blade 2 and Blade "1" did not include subs and I did not feel anything was lacking.
Own the Reference 5s which are basically the blade 2 with a normal box. Listened to both and determined the 5s were a little more tunable in my room. Love the KEF brand and value for money and very pleased with mine. Great review Erin.
Got to check out a pair of these at my local hifi store. They absolutely blew me away. Sadly can’t afford them right now, but I will have a pair one day! For now I’ve got a pair of R11 Metas on the way! Super stoked to get them set up!
Keep making awesome content! 🔥
This is a master class review. I love your objective and subjective breakdown. I'm interested in the kef reference series and your reviews are definitely helping me make a decision. Keep up the good work. Honestly your channel is 🔥
Thanks for the honest review, Erin.
I went from the KEF R11s directly to the Blade 2 (massive jump).The Blades do require a bit of placement- tweaking and quality amplification. I also tried them with a pair of Subs (not needed in my opinion) and didn't like the results.
Their ability to cast sound vertically is what sold me, compared to other higher-end speakers that I listened to and failed in that department.
The Blades just play the music without calling any particular attention to themselves. I am skeptical of Speakers that do that and whether they can provide enjoyment over the long haul, like the Blade 2 can.
Side comment: The Blade 1 requires a larger listening area than the Blade 2.
Cheers
Really great review. I have the Reference 3 Meta and have a hard time believing I can get much better without spending a fortune. I love the KEF sound. The Blade sure are tempting though.
I think you are correct. You are in that good performance to dollar ratio. If I owned the Ref 3 I would probably skip the blade. I would be looking for used Vivid giya speakers. As a Kef fan you will enjoy vivid as they sound similar but more goooderrrr in technical terms.
At 66 I think these are the best looking speaker I have ever seen and would love to own a pair in black with the gold cones. I am a believer in point source drivers.
I am a Kef fan. It is what it is,simply perfection. I have bought my first Kef speakers 32 years ago.I hope one day i will buy these Meta s.
You are a man with real passion and honest so please don't listen to anything or anyone tried to let you down with no real reason or argument , So please keep doing what you already doing because we know that you are honest man .
Your subjective impressions and test data for the KEF Blade 2 Meta confirms the excellent results obtained by other reviewers, such as Stereophile, The Absolute Sound and HiFi News. Thank you for providing detailed and science backed equipment evaluations.
Fantastic video! Watching it at 1am here in Australia
I agree with you on every bit! I also was absolutely mind bogled when I heard the blades I used to work in a high end store and the original blade 2 was my favourite even though we had speakers of up to €120k/pair. The way they put this enormously wide, holographic soundstage together with the huge dynamic and low end capability is just sheer perfection.
The design is just pure form follows function with perfect results.
As a proud owner of 4367 this is the first time I’m impressed. Not that I’m looking for an upgrade but I really want to listen to a pair
I see you have good taste as a fellow owner of the 4367s lol.
I have 4367 after seeing Erin's review. This one def piqued my interest in KEF...
@@bryantai747 I also own the 4367. Make sure you listen to Kef for yourself.
I demoed the non meta blade 2, the Reference 5 and 3 and thought they all sounded pretty dull. Vocals lacked the transparency of the JBLs and the highs were even farther behind and pretty meh. Not sure how much change there was between the older and newer kefs. Maybe a lot… maybe marketing, I am truly unsure.
The 4367 sounds a lot less reproduced. My guess is there is some transient response differences not showing up in the measurements (look at the efficiency and impedance curves).
Maybe the kefs need silly amounts of power to come alive.
If you demo the kefs I would love to hear your opinion. Hard to argue with the measurements of the kefs but I find the 4367 much more enjoyable. I honestly wonder if Erin had both 4367 speakers or did he just have one in mono for a single night, I can’t remember (could have been the M2 he only had one of).
A better upgrade path would be adding subs with a proper highpass to your JBLs. Subs take mine to a whole other level.
But yes this review made me second guess my Kef demo and I will seek another.
Great review! I hope it works out for you and your able to get this speaker. You deserve it!
This is really amazing. I think this speaker kinda proves the correlation to data and subjective sound quality.
Erin, thanks for yet another great review!
These bad boys are definitely end-game material 🤩
Yes they are!
end game comes down to ones budget, they are nice but there's much better out there
@@christianrogers2355 nah. I’ve heard all your favorite Dyns. They can’t touch these, man. But if you like them more power to you.
lol, if you say so
better than the contour, yes/maybe, not in the same atmosphere of the confidence,, but to each there own@@ErinsAudioCorner
@@christianrogers2355 lol. That’s how I feel about the Dyn. They’re good. But they’re always adding their own “flavor” and I find I prefer a more neutral speaker. Doesn’t mean I don’t like other speakers, but if I’m spending my money, then I’m most likely going to spend it on one that doesn’t alter the sound of the music I’m listening to on purpose.
Blade One Meta owner here. They are superb and significantly better than the previous non-Meta versions, its easily audible.
Can you describe the difference for me? I buy used so the opinion is valuable to me.
I don't believe you. You are justifying your out lay. There is not a lot between non Meta and Meta speakers. Then I have to question your age because as we age our hearing deteriates. By the time we are 30 we can't hear above 16,000hz. Women can hear upto 20, 000 hz. Then that depends on the individual. A slight difference for the Meta, but the BS of marketing can make you believe different, and marketing gives you desire. As a once sells person once I sold you desire I had the sell.
@@michaeloconnor9465 The lower treble region extends down to 4khz, the entire region on up is a lot cleaner subjectively and better integrated with the mids which also subjectively sound clearer--no small feat. The xover is completely redesigned a well. Kef took many years to come up with an improved Blade they weren't just sitting on the hands making up marketing BS. i have several hundred hours now on the Blade Metas and owned the previous model, how about you?
@@michaeloconnor9465Give it up man. You don't have a clue.
@@michaeloconnor9465😂😢
Love your passion coming through in this review. Was very cool to hear your excitement
Thank you for the great review. Really appreciate both the data and your listening thoughts. Although these speakers are out of my reach, I enjoy hearing/reading and learning more about the leading edge of our passion. Currently happy with my R3ms, but looking at R7m and R11ms.
Great description of diffraction audibility there, Erin! 😉
Sweeeet! Makes me feel good about my kef Q series from 20 years ago, good on kef for having halo product after halo product, with solid entry level stuff that’s also gorgeous in any context.
This is praise from you, absolutely. I've never even remotely considered these speakers... until this review. I feel like what you're saying is these are better than the JBL 4367, which changes everything for my end-game speaker top 5 list.
You should demo for yourself. You might have a different outcome. As a mainstream brand a Kef demo should be pretty easy. I would assume a demo of the JBLs will be a lot harder, I had to buy mine blind.
I own the 4367 and have demoed the blade 2 (reference line too) and came away pretty lukewarm on the Kef. Specifically the Kef Reference 3 (same price as the 4367) just sounded kind of veiled. While the big JBLs just make everything seem less reproduced.
I will chalk it up to a bad demo of the kefs , hard to argue with the amazing measurements of the blade.
The one place the kefs are a lot better is sound stage depth. The sound stage on the JBL is all in front of the speaker with very little depth. The Kef blade has a nice depth of soundstage and disappear as a source far better than the 4367s (I mean look at the two…)
As a whole the 4367s dig out dynamics where I thought there were none. Even old 80s hard rock/metal comes to life on the JBL.
Maybe I will buy a used pair of blades (a few on audiomart) and do a direct A/B. I was a big revel fan until I did a direct A/B of the 228be and 4367 in my own room/system… now I am less of a fan of Revel and no longer an owner lol…
the Revel is a great speaker but the JBL is the closest I have come to that “real” sound. I believe that real sound is hidden in the transient response. Maybe that shows up in the compression data. I would love to see how these speakers produce a square wave.
Back with headphones dot com did headphones measurements a lot could be determined from the square wave.
Maybe in a direct A/B I would eat my words and be on the Kef train, hard to say.
@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm , all sounds good. Truth is, it would be hard as all hell for me to give up the idea of a pair of 4367s in my living room. So no arguments from me.
Borresen X6's would be a great speaker to get a hold of at around this price point considering how much praise they are getting and apparent value for money. Anything from the Borresen X line would be a great review idea I think!
Bought these from bestbiy in blue 2 years ago. Been waiting on reviews. I dont think ill ever ask for another speaker. Looks qmazing, sounds the business, I'm done for a long time
I once told my wife I had found my final speaker. That was about 6 pairs ago and she still brings it up.
Great speaker, very nice review. You are a beacon, like only few others as ASR for example, in a sea of pure subjectivists and audiophools. Expensive speaker, true, but here you get what you are paying for, not like in many purely design-wise good speakers.
That's a wild looking speaker! Thanks for sharing!
Erin, I enjoy watching your channel. After your review of the Blades I went to my new pair of Audiovector QR3 SE speakers and put them to the test with "Wanna Be Startin' Something". I could hear that "click" distinctly. After I put on Shirley Bassey's "Something Else" album and listened to her version of "It's Impossible". In this track is a subtle, very fast "tick, tick, tick" hanging above the orchestra...my speakers passed the test. Try Shirley Bassey's song. Would love to know if you can hear it.
Great video, keep up the good work. I hope this leads to more highend review samples.
The great thing about KEF is that they keep upgrading their bottom line speakers and implementing some of the technology in their reference and Meta series into their value lines. Right now the LS 60 wiresless are on sale for 5k per pair, 1400 watts of power, just add a steamer, and you're done! Allot of the Q towers are vastly price reduced now. My assumption is they will be discontinuing these models and implementing some sort of a "meta-Q driver" upgraded version of these speakers soon, just my opinion but if they do that they're gonna be kicking some serious ass over any similarly priced speakers. I had a pair of 105.2s in the mid 80s, now I have the Q series in a 7.2.4 system with Martin Logan subs and love it! I look forward to upgrading my speakers in the next year or 2. Probably own KEF for life. Thanks for the info!
Great review!! That 200hz might be preferable spot if any just for separating the bass and midrange based on watching videos regarding mixing. I think with something this high end with tight tolerances increases speaker to speaker matching phase, FR etc. don’t hear much about this but I think it maybe a big factor in clarity imaging etc etc (taking the room out of the equation).
Job well done as usual and thank you!!
Wow! What a speaker!
I don't have a place for these, but if I did ...
Fantastic review!
Great shirt!
Thanks!
What a great review! Enjoyed it very much. It appears Kef has hit it out of the park with these speakers. Thanks a lot.
So, the up-to-date (2023 and forward) speakers do something I've never seen in a set of speakers, which is entirely takes away the "sweet seat" effect, which is a good thing, IMHO. My wife and I can sit on entirely opposite ends of the couch and hear the same thing as if we were sitting in the middle of the couch. How they do that, I don't know.
I sat through the demo at Audio Advice Live in Raleigh 2023. After I listened for a few minutes and even brought up this sweet seat fact, the guy kneeled down beside the couch and said, "Could you see yourself spending $35,000 on these speakers?" I said, "I could, but I won't." It's been 9 months or so now, and quite frankly, my mind keeps coming back to these speakers. If I am willing to spend $13 on Lascalas, if I could get a deal on a set of these, I might just be willing to do it. After all, this is like buying a boat. It's the same thing. But, it's in fact cheaper than a boat. My wife keeps telling me my HiFi is my boat.
$30 grand is a pretty serious chunk of change but still a lot less than some flagships. It's rare to see such an unequivocal amount of approval on here though so these have to be something pretty special. Nice job, KEF.
yup, kef's "flagship" is 100k 👍
I have heard and owned A LOT of speakers, and I've been deep in the hobby about 40 years. The original KEF Blade was at AXPONA 2011 and it is the best speaker I have ever heard at any price point playing my own records/CDs/SACDs. The one time I have heard the Blade II Meta, they were set up improperly in a Best Buy (Kennesaw GA) and did not impress - the staff had EQed them to death, and I could not play my own cd demo discs.
re: Michael Jackson track - I think you're talking about that faint click-click noise in the right channel, I caught it on headphones but would have surely missed it if not for your description.
That’s correct.
Interesting, I too demoed at Best Buy (meh was the result) maybe I just need a “real” demo.
The KEF blade 2 meta on the biggest Hegel intergrated at the iear audio show was the best sound I ever heard in my life. I hunt that sound till this day. I don't have 60k to spend😅
They sound fantastic !
You can get a better deal at your dealer
Was it the Hegel 600?
@@mehmetcamat4458 It might have been yes otherwise the H390.
@@jillbraser9302 25k for the speakers and another 10-13k for the amp. With the rest of the stuff it might have been 45-50k and that is with decent deals.
Once again excellent, excellent review, Erin. You do a terrific job of explaining what these measurements mean, especially regarding how they will be audible to someone hearing them in their listening space. The one question I have is regarding the Blade 2's efficiency. I have a Purifi Eigentact which puts out around 130-140 wpc into 8 ohms, and I'm wondering if that would be sufficient for most rooms. Not that I'll ever be able to afford these. But I do play Powerball from time to time. 🤤🤤
Yup, I listened to these speakers at my local dealer and it kinda wrecked me. I now compare everything else to these. I know audio memory isn't great but these were my favorite by a wide margin. By contrast, the KEF powered LS60s were very dull and uninteresting to me so I ended up deciding to let my existing Ryan 620s stay in my room for another 5-6 years then try again later. Don't listen to these without knowing the price because it may be disappointing like eating regular hamburger after eating a perfectly cooked melt in your mouth flavorful steak.
Looking good is subjective, while i love the look of these beauties, my wife hates them 🤪
So they probably will never end up in my room.
That said, the best speakers i’ve ever heard are the Blumenhofer Gran Gioia 2x16. Those wiped the floor subjectively with the blade meta’s.
The best soundstage i’ve ever experienced were from a set of Illumnia Magister MK2, mind blowingly great.
Love the review, love the speakers!
For now I’m sticking with my DIY speakers and Hegel H390 🥰
Great and informative review. I would love for kef reference 3 meta and refefence 5 meta reviews to come out, eventually.
It is awesome to see a fellow audiophile this excited about a piece of gear that has changed their view.
I have the Kef LS50 meta with a Rel sub and a marantz for few months now and I can only imagine what these blades would sound like.
They'd be a fantastic platform for Erin to go down the rabbit hole of amplifier sonics.
I suspect these absolutely thrive on as much power as possible.
The coax being high passed in the mid-band, and spreading the bottom end across the four drivers ... just dig it.
Already did some ABX testing with a couple amps last night. 👍😎😉
@@ErinsAudioCorner and? That 3.3 ohm should be low enough to hear a difference in amps.
@@ErinsAudioCorner
Nice!
What about a waterfall plot, which shows things like decay/ringing and resonance nodes? The kind of measurement and plot that Danny Richie at GR-Research does in his speaker testing. Do you ever do those plots or graphs? I'd be curious to see that for this speaker, to see just how good it is in that regard!
Good review Erin! Hope you are able to acquire them. Thanks for sharing.
As speakers get better and better, the need to playing music back in surround becomes essential. Two channels are a serious limitation as speakers like the KEF come down in price and offer flat frequency response and other objective perfections etc... You can widen the soundstage with your surround settings and not tipping and towing the speaker from ideal. I wonder how the LS60's hang with the Blades, previous experience was the LS60's were right there with the standard Blades. thanks for the review, great work
Did you by chance comment before watching the review, friend?
@@AnotherAnonymousMan Yes, I skipped through because I don't need an explanation on how the speaker is designed. What did I miss other than his desire for a wide soundstage which is trait of a flawed speaker. More is not always better. Did he mention the LS60? oh well not sure why you asked.
For myself at this price point, I'd go for a Kii 3 system because of it's built in DSP for room adaptability, the fact that absolutely first-rate amplification is also built in, and the available matching DAC/control unit and bass module. That said, these things are phenomenally impressive -- it's hard to imagine a better passive floor-stander!
The Kii 3 are a great all-in-one solution and very versatile. But there are still a lot of enthusiasts with preamps/amps they have invested in and want to keep. And with the smooth/even directivity inherent in the Blade 2 Meta, you can easily EQ for personal preference and/or room correction via a newer or older standalone DSP/room correction system.
Erin has tested and reviewed the Kii 3 and was definitely impressed. But he didn't seem quite as enthusiastic about them compared to these KEFs, though he does have a bit of a bias for KEFs concentric drivers. He was even using a pair of the earlier KEF 5" midrange/tweeter concentric drivers in custom fabricated A-pillars above his dash in one of his custom car audio systems years ago! 😛 He also tried the 5" concentric midrange/tweeter BMS 5CN162 in the same car which use a compression driver for the HF. He likes what they do and so do I. ;)
@@bbfoto7248 -- I'm a fan of concentric mid-tweeters too. On my retirement budget, that means a pair of Kali Audio IN-8s with an IN-5 center channel and not Kii (or Genelec of Neumann), so there's that. Then there's the fact that I don't have the room (or a suitable top-notch amp) for big floor-standers, so Kii (or Genelec of Neumann) makes more sense as a big-$$$ speaker purchase should my hypothetical lottery winnings not be quite enough to buy a bigger abode along with a major system upgrade. 😎
@@editorjuno
I'm with you, mate. As long as your main listening room isn't too large you can put together a fantastic system on almost "beer budget" money these days by using good active studio monitors and a decent streamer or BT receiver.
I'm actually using the Kali Audio IN-8 v2 in my simple bedroom setup combined with an iFi ZEN Blue v2 Bluetooth Receiver with balanced outputs and LDAC 990kbps wireless connection via my Android smartphone or a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ that I use as my "music server" to play local files from the internal 1tb microSD card or via streaming services.
I even have a cheap Numark TTX-USB DJ turntable connected to the Kali IN-8v2 for spinning vinyl, although it rarely gets used. It has a built-in phono preamp...definitely not great, but good enough for casual listening in that type of setup.
I had bought the TTX-USB with a dedicated mono 78rpm cartridge/stylus just so I could could rip and archive about 80 of my grandparents' and great aunt's musical performances they had recorded in the late 1940's to 60's on a Home Record-Cutting machine! I didn't even know they existed, ha! Crazy. Look up Rek-O-Kut, Cromwell, or Recordio home disc-cutting machines from as early as the 1930's.
I needed the variable speed & pitch control of the TTX DJ turntable b/c the speed of the "78" RPM home record-cutting machine was way off and it had long since disappeared. Once I completed that endeavor, I purchased an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge for this turntable for standard 33 & 45 rpm stereo LPs.
I've got a better vinyl rig in the main system, though streaming is still used way more often just out of convenience.
I've also been using the Neumann KH120AG monitors in my home recording studio since 2013 as my secondary monitors for a no-subwoofer mix check option and they still impress me every day for what they do in such a small, compact package. But those are used in nearfield only.
The greatest cost/performance ratio can be obtained via the many excellent DIY speaker designs that are available now...that is IF you have the extra time, skills, and tools/workshop to support a DIY endeavor.
Many of the Jeff Bagby and Troels Gravesen DIY loudspeaker designs are a great start and will easily outperform commercially available speakers costing 2x-4x more.
But for most people, any of the more recently available "good" active studio monitor or powered loudspeaker systems are an easy "fast-track" to great sound, and the various Kali Audio offerings hard very hard to beat in their price bracket.
Most of these types of active studio monitors also incorporate a decent compliment of built-in low-shelf & high-shelf EQ "trim" controls to account for various in-room placement scenarios as well as personal preference.
I was thinking maybe I could stretch to the Reference 3 Metas, but these... well perhaps if I sell my place and move to a cheaper place out of the city I could use some of the difference for a pair of these. I do think they look awesome.
If I were you I'd pay money to leave the city, the fact that you actually come out ahead while leaving the city has me baffled why anyone wouldn't unless there were very specific reasons that could not possibly be dealt with any other way. Cities are broken.
Wow, great to have this information, thanks a bunch!
I have 4 of these… love them
Looks like you've initiated the self-destruct button on ASR by mixing your opinion with measurements. Lot's of exploded heads and claw marks. You are doing something right. :)
ASR is cancer... No discourse there can be had like humans and the website owner encourages inflammatory nonsense as he partakes in that himself too... I'm glad Erin isn't part of that platform again... Pathetic lot
Great video as always. Have been wondering how these compare to the D&D 8c.
Heard the muons at a show last weekend, last time I heard the blade 2 meta they sounded better. Amazing what a few years difference makes.
For the same price you can get a pair of Genelec 8361A monitor + W371 woofer system. Flat from 20 to 20k and have cardioid bass. Plus you save money on amp and dac. And you get built in room correction and EQ. I think you should hold off buying until you hear some competitor around the same price.
I’ve heard them. Friend owns that exact setup. 👍
@@ErinsAudioCornerWow, how do they compare? The Genelec system should measure just as well if not better than the kef.
Agree, there are some pro monitors that have incredible performance.
@@botwally2954 to me, the KEF image better. Everything sounds like it is actually coming from the same point in space. Noticeably, the bass sounds right there with all the other instruments. It’s an experience I’ve never heard with any other speaker capable of this kind of output across the entire spectrum.
Of course; this is all sighted. But if I’m paying $30k and the data shows two really good options, I’m going to go with the one that I prefer, sighted.
@@ErinsAudioCorner Эрин прямо рад за тебя
Simple math: 5" driver to produce 110dB/1m would require ~0.56mm xmax and ~0.177mm for 110dB/1m and ~1.77mm for 120dB/1m. The center tweeter took some Sd out so the required xmax mignt meed a bit more.
For a 3 way design I think it's hard to make it audible.
Yes the center removes a ton, renders it essentially a disc radiator.
I would suspect a diffractive component may be generated with variable edge exposure ... it would all sum at the same frequency on axis.
How significant that would be, unclear.
I trust KEF's efforts to steer way clear.
Now I'm curious how the Borresen x3/x6 would match up to the Kef Blade
Hi Erin, thanks again for your excellent review. Can you comment on the comparison with the Dutch & Dutch 8c? Obviously the amplification needs to be set aside somehow in such a comparison. However, I am under the impression that the Kef Blade 2 Meta review was more or less amplification independent as well, as influence of that was not mentioned.
Ditto, Erin would love your opinion on this vs 8C
Might as well get the Blade One Meta!
Correct. If you have $28k you probably have $35k… just saying.
The Blade 1 might be too large for the room . . .
@@thomosburn8740 yeah maybe if you don’t want to EQ at all. With some EQ bigger just means more over head if needed.
@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm you can never get away from EQ completely because all recordings are not created equal you can't expect your amplifier and speakers to get to a level of expense that EQ becomes a non-issue
Thank you, good sir. I really hope you get to put the Revel Salon2's on the Klippel one day.
I’m surprised Amir hasn’t yet since he owns a pair.
At any rate, they do have their SPIN data published. Lots of “steps” in the DI but most likely attributed to the vertical distribution of drive units and not an issue with horizontal dispersion (I’d hope).
Folks have been begging Amir to measure them for quite some time. 🤣
The salons have enough data imo, and are now officially discontinued.
The salon II have more damped highs to my ear (beryllium benefits are real) and lead to a cleaner sound. They also reach lower.
I imagine Erin would like the soundstage better on the Blade.
Me, I am a horn guy now, I don’t need soundstage, just kick those details down my throat lol.
@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm hey, if you think about it, the KEF drivers are horns. They acoustically load the tweeter. And the mid range is the waveguide. 👍
@@ErinsAudioCorner yes I was thinking about that exact thing when I saw the controlled directivity.
If you think about it all your “favorite” speakers have controlled directivity recently. Maybe there is something to it. I was once a wider is better guy, now not so much. I think controlled is cleaner with less room coloration for better or worse.
I'm lucky to own Blade 2 first gen version. There might be better speakers (like the new meta) but speaker wise I'm good. Even the first gen without meta, speaker is so good I don't want to change. I have heard lot of speakers. Even worked at the hifi retail shop part of my life. Selling B&W etc. I love these speakers. Pair it with GOOD amp and GOOD room with some acoustic design. I have done that and I love them.
That's how I feel about my pair of Reference 1 non metas. Are there better speakers out there?...probably, but very very few, and I'm after about 5 years with them still completely satisfied.
I would love if you could get your hands on Aerial Acoustics 10T's. Hearing those was the first time I understood why audiophiles are neurotic about sound quality. The 10T's presented uncanny realism I didn't know was possible
Great amplification pairing for Blade 2 would be Simaudio pre power!😊
As a Blade One owner they need a lot of juice, at least 300 WPC into 4 0hms. The Blade 2 is 2db less sensitive, they need at least the same if not more power! I'm not a head banger but I do like to hear symphonic music with dynamics reasonably close to what I hear live. Yes, the moon amps would pair nicely.
How would you objectively explain why the Blade is able to reproduce those sounds you mentioned from those two tracks so much better than the other speakers? Is it lower distortion? A bump in response in the frequencies those sounds are in? Better match in response between the pair of speakers giving them better imaging? Room interaction? I have heard you explain brightness using measurements; is it possible to explain these examples in a similar way? Excellent review as usual. Thank you!
I think it's their amazing phase & timing coherence. They are SO coherent that the tiniest change in pitch is easily detected. Off-center vinyl will drive you bananas on these speakers.
@@thomosburn8740
@hifihometheater
Agreed. When you see such smoothness in the amplitude response/FR and ERDI, plus low distortion, and no issues through the crossover regions, it really points to a speaker with really good phase coherency and impulse response/timing. Low compression/good dynamic range also means those attributes remain intact. In addition, when you measure FR that is this smooth, it usually points to BOTH the Left & Right speakers matching very closely in this regard, which further improves the pinpoint focus and Separation/space between each element in the soundstage without smearing underlying details.
Still.. you've spent more on measurment equipment to find the perfect speaker 😅 Job done now, cars next?
Maybe a Ford Pinto. 😂
@@ErinsAudioCorner I just learned about the planned new Renault 5 electric. My current work place is planned for demolition and rebuild, so I may have to get a car for the temporary relocation. Given a choice, I'd rather go on using public transport and spend the money on speakers. 🤣
@@thomaslutro5560EVs are a scam. Reference speakers are not.
@@thomaslutro5560a cheap reliable used car won't be super expensive same you can go and get speakers with it :)
@@thomaslutro5560EVs are a scam.
I just auditioned these. Hyper expensive gear usually doesn’t appeal to me; I prefer to find more affordable gear that performs above its price point. But if I had the money, I would buy these in a heartbeat. The aesthetics and the sound suit my preferences perfectly.
Thanks, Erin. It looks like those woofers are force canceling?
They are.
I truly appreciate all your work Erin; looks damn good!😉 .. 🤔I wonder how the 30k Aspens would compare, or how the 1's would change in data and sound.
Edit: I just tech compared the 1&2 Blade Metas on their website. That extra 5" in height and that big increase in extra weight may be impossible to set up for test in your house!😂😉
At almost 19 K per speaker after tax, I hope nobody claims that they need subwoofers for stereo listening.😂😂
I would love to see how these compare to the KEF Reference 3 Meta. Those are my absolute dream speakers. I just can’t quite get myself to like the blades.
I got to hear the Blade 2 in Tokyo last weekend and they are pretty impressive. Of course being a DIY open baffle fan, they wouldn't really be for me but for a box (monopole) speaker, they did really well. We also heard the Muon and between the two I would choose the Blade over it both acoustically and cosmetically.
As for the modulation distortion on the Blade, no, the cone excursion will be tiny compared to the wavelength of anything from even the upper range of the tweeter due to the 500+ Hz crossover like you mentioned. Also, it's not like the tweeter itself is modulating and the direct radiation from it on axis isn't really going to be significantly impacted by the motion of the wave guide created by the midrange cone even if that cone motion were more significant.
@around 15:20 - "The most butt puckering situation..." That's hilarious!
Kal Rubinson replaced his Revel Studio 2s with these, so I’m sure they’re outstanding. It’s unfortunate though that you have to spend $30k to get this level of performance. Not sure I could ever justify buying a new pair, but maybe a good used or demo set. I would really like to hear these next to the Reference 5 to see how significant the differences are. Perhaps throw the JBL 4367 in there as well.
Another coaxial speaker I look forward to your review is the Kali SM-5-C. Really curious if Kali can fix some coaxial issue with their IN series.
Musicians: how can we minimize background noises from getting recorded?
Audiophiles: what equipment do I need to hear background noises?
😂
I was thinking the same! Lol. That's IF most musicians are around for the final mix or mastering. If people only knew how little most "artists" are involved in the production of modern music. LOVE Erin's reviews and he probably swung me from saving for Perlistens to getting some KEFs. They are more "room friendly" which many audiophiles don't seem to understand. I don't want my living room to look like my studio with subs, cables, amps all over.
Congrats on your future endeavors.
New home & potentially new personal/reference spks.
Enjoy.
I hope you can buy them. It would be awesome to have a UA-camr reviewer with these as their reference
Love the Blade 2. Best I've personally experienced is the Wilson Audio Chronosonic XVX, which were mind boggling, but they're just not realistic unless you have "I'll just build an addition to the house" money when you're speaker shopping.
Erin would be curious if you could write just briefly how they are different/why you like them more than the D&D 8c. Thanks
Just to make sure you towed them out 20 degrees, I have the blade ones and still figuring out the best way to position them in a small room. 20 by 10
Somewhere in that neighborhood. I didn’t measure the exact angle. But what you do really will depend on you. There’s a balance there.
Will try it out, I bought the blade ones a month ago and struggling to put it in a room that is 20 by 11, so I’m using the long so they won’t be so close to the walls next to it. I used to have the ref 5 non meta a they were fantastic but the blades are just something different. Everything is smoother more accurate and less in you face if that makes sense.
My Adam Audio S3Vs resolved that "percussive scratch" quite nicely - it was in the right channel, for sure, but a little to the left and just above the right speaker.
ALMOST 50K SUBS !!!
So close!
Damn that's a lot of bass!
Another great review!
Even at 30K, I'm still impressed. I wish..
Superb video Erin, loved the breakdown and coaxial education. My only critique is that we didn't get more B-roll of these beauties. Question, do you think DSP/DSP XO would address any of the issues you noted?
As always excellent review from Erin. However, one important fact is missing from the review. How far away from side walls were the speakers? The reason I am saying this is that in uk hifi shows where rooms are smaller, i always found KEF reference speakers sounding much better than either Blade 1 or Blade 2. Since technical aspects of the Blades are, in theory, better than KEF reference speakers, i assume that distance from side walls is the reason why they sound worse in smaller rooms.
I just came back from Munich HiFi show and I think that there are much better speakers than KEF Blades and Reference boxes, albeit at much more money.
Just try to listen to Raidho TD6 reference speaker.
Ok, it costs 210k Euro, so 7 times more than Blade 2, but it is the closest i had ever been to real accustic music. I mean classical, opera and Jazz.
My home system is about 5k dollars at current prices, so i am not trying to boast about something i can not afford, but if you ever have a chance to listen to Raidho (or Borresen), you should.
It kicks other high end speakers like Magico, Wilson, Rockport, Marten, Gryphon, Sonus Faber, Kharma, Avalon, CAD, Eggleston, Estelon, Zellaton etc. into dust.
I include here Wilson Chronosonic, never mind speakers lower down the range (although Wilson Alexia and Dave had excellent show in Munich driven by VTL and Constallation amps, if i can recal).
Anyway, on planet earth KEF speakers like Ref 5 and 3 (i always disliked Ref 1 after hearing it dozen times) and Blades and B&W and Von Schwaikert are the real choices if you want great hifi instead of BMW.
Could you do a simple comparison to the Dutch and Dutch 8c. Which would be better in circumstances/ rooms/ listening levels x and y, vs the other in a and b
Wow really interesting review. I’d always wondered if the blades were style or substance - will have to listen to them some day. Peace my dude x
a car...or the KEFs...? if we had GOOD public transportation... no question, the KEFs....
not loving the looks but i'll never own them so.... nice review as always
What affect do these side mounted woofers have on the sound? I've been seeing these types of designs a lot in recent years. It seems to me like it would result in a blurry, slurred type of low end due to the distances and time difference between the near and far ends of the cones all emanating at once, not to mention odd directivity patterns. I have similar concerns about the newer Genelecs with the woofers that apparently radiate from those weird little slots. Or is none of this an issue in practice and everything plays nicely in the real world?
Re that little percussion sound - you're probably hearing it "better" than the original producers did, and perhaps, if they had access to the Blades, they would have dialled it back. 😉
Thanks so much for the review! I was really looking forward to this one. You did a great job… And you got bigger balls than I do hoisting a $15k speaker up there. “Butt puckering” cracked me up.
Really wish you best of luck in getting yourself you dream speakers. Start a go fund me. If you get even 1k of your subs to pitch in $10 you’re 1/3 of the way there.
great review. Similar to what others have said, the Reference Meta is my goal, but these sure are nice