Kef Blades (1), being auditioned...please share your experience.

https://www.stereophile.com/images/615KEF2fig05.jpg

If you look at the horizontal dispersion characterstics of the Blade, they are a bit on uneven side past 30 degrees off-axis.

The newer Reference and R series are a lot better in this regard and should have much less variation as you move around. While they also start dropping off at around 30 degrees, the continued drop off is very gradual and should sound a lot more uniform.

Alcoholbob,  Thanks for that.  I am upgrading the KEF Reference 1, and yes, the Reference series are much more room friendly. IMHO the Blade stands apart.....

Bump, I had the kef r105/3 that had 2 6'' mid bass drivers and they still made male vocals sound like choir boys. Designers believe wide dispersion speakers are the way to go and maybe so, but with that coax driver pushing so much radiated sound of reflected surfaces and our ears being more sensitive around the 3khz range we need room to let the speakers breathe. My solution was to put acoustic tiles over the sheetrock on my 7' ceiling, use heavy carpet pad under the carpet and keep the speakers 5' from the sidewalls. I'm looking at the Blade now and if I go for it i'll be posting my impressions for sure.

Speakers with metal drivers are a pita. Pulling my old speakers that used poly cone drivers and dropping in a pair with all metal drivers sucked. I just went through several of the affordable headliners (ahem 20-30k list) and while there’s no denying the speed and resolution they all have a clinical vs musical sound to them. 

It’s more work getting these new, clinical, ‘tools to analyze music’ to actually sound musical but once we do the results undeniable. I decided to go with the blades over the other brands and models I had in here because out of the box the bass, soundstage and imaging are already the best I’ve heard. Still a bit more recording dependent than I want, but I’ve only had them 3 weeks.