KEF Blade 2

For the sake of the sale the salesman would say what he did. He is right though. The blade1 and 2 mid have a 3" voice coil and a uniquely vented magnet for the backwave of the mid and tweeter that made the blade speakers different from the reference uni-q. Now the ref and blade meta's share the same uni-q driver. meta is a different way to deal with the backwave and the guys on the science forum have some measurements that show some differences, when I asked if any of the measurements could be translated into differences we could hear nobody there said yes or no. Imo you made a smart buy and I bought my blades last summer fairly confident a meta was in the pipeline.

I just thought of something cool. Kef has three levels of execution. If you look at the xover parts, wiring and jacks from the Kef LS50, the Kef Reference and the Blade series you will see three different levels of execution. This is why a stock reference will never sound as good as the blade.....and the LS50 cannot sound as good as the reference......but they all use the same or similar Meta driver. However, even the Blade series does not use as good of wire, xover parts and jacks as can be used......and they wire the coax driver using push on connectors.

So, what if you removed the entire xover from an LS50 Meta....and ran great wires directly out the back that are wired directly to the voice coil wires (never been done before, that I know of).....then you add a Ground Enhnacer right on the negative voice coil wire and you put a Bybee Quantum Clarifier (iQSEII) directly on the back of the meta material on the driver....OMG........then you have a hardwired external xover using parts way better than what Kef uses in the blades. You could have WBT binding posts on the xover or use my plastic clamping method that sounds even better (same as a hard solder) The wires from the speaker to xover could be clamped the same way.....so you can detach them whenever you like.

Such a speaker would be way more transparent than the Blade Meta from 450hz on up. If you added some serious subs.....WOW......however, there is more. If you rolled off the lows to the woofs (like in the blade and Reference) with a cap or a cap and coil....say at 200hz......then you could bring your subs up to that level (need 2 subs for best integration). This way you can play the speakers at seriously loud levels and with the mid driver relieved of some of its load....would be cleaner still.

The speakers cost $1600....stands $500.....Bybee Clarifiers..$200.....Ground Enhancers....$50......custom xovers mounted on super damped board....maybe $1700?.......so that is less than $4K......ad subs of your choice....Kef’s best small ones are $2K each (2 9 inch opposing woofs)......now you are at $8K......for a speaker that is better than a Blade ($28,000) in most ways....won’t look as cool......just sayin......many ways up the mountain of great sound.

You could also build your own woofs (2 10s?) in a box and use it as a stand underneath and use one of those active xover amps..($400) to power the woofs and equalize them.....way cheaper than buying expensive subs....of course, you would have to make them. If you have forward firing woofs then you could xover the main speaker even higher (Kef cosses the mids to woofs at 450hz) and achieve even more dynamic range.

There is a review by someone who had the Blade 2 and the Reference 5? He said the integration between the woofs and the mids was better on the reference...(more than likely due to the fact that you have side firing woofs on the Blade crossing over at 450hz). Personally, I would never want a speaker with side firing woofs.....it just cannot be time aligned properly.

It is a great joy to have an imagination. To dream....to know that we are never done...there is always more......but somethings, are more for less.

May you be filled with joy and love.....forever.

Your dealer is making things up if he says the Meta technology will make a speaker play lower and with more authority. The Meta thang is just a tweeter rear wave absorber that lowers the distortion of the tweeter......It has nothing to do with the mid driver or bass drivers.

I have no idea what you just said but it makes me like the exclusivity of the blade1 even more now. Is it possible meta is a cheaper way to deal with the backwave than kef used with the original? As an owner I may hang on to that awhile.

Vivid and Yamaha also have backwave cancellation. Now KEF also has it with the META. I do not think KEF had it in the past, prior to the Meta, with Blades or any other models. With the Vivid speakers, this backwave cancellation allowed them to be placed close to the front wall. Vivid told me that. Other speakers may also have something similar, but I am not aware of them.

There are differences between the drivers used in the Blade, Reference, and LS50. There are some dealer posts on A'gon that get into those details.