Was each driver measured independently (only one driver playing at a time) or is this somehow estimated from the speaker playing full range (which in my view is not the actual nearfield response of individual drive units)?
KEF speakers are not wide dispersion, so their soundstage isn’t large in a decently big room. However, in a narrow room the side wall reflections are stronger, so a narrow dispersion speaker may be preferred.
My understanding is that it's all relative.Just to pile on to this question, is there an agreed upon definition of wide versus narrow dispersion? Like X degrees at Y frequency (or averaged over Y-Z frequencies)?
It could be that B&W and MA have worse directivity ( not narrower) leading to a worse soundstage as reflected sound does not match direct sound. But this is speculation on my part.Quick question here and sorry if it's a daft one, I was always under the assumption that KEF's had a very wide dispersion of sound due to the Uni-Q array? Is this just a myth as I see on KEF's own website and report in various other forums that they disperse sound well? Has this been dispelled by the science?
For my own experience. When I demo'd the R11, B&W 702 and MA Gold 300 for me the Kefs had the widest soundstage by far (maybe the other were even narrower)
My understanding is that it's all relative.
Those others may have FR & directivity issues, so the unevenness (especially around ~2kHz) could be what you heard.Quick question here and sorry if it's a daft one, I was always under the assumption that KEF's had a very wide dispersion of sound due to the Uni-Q array? Is this just a myth as I see on KEF's own website and report in various other forums that they disperse sound well? Has this been dispelled by the science?
For my own experience. When I demo'd the R11, B&W 702 and MA Gold 300 for me the Kefs had the widest soundstage by far (maybe the other were even narrower)
Those others may have FR & directivity issues, so the unevenness (especially around ~2kHz) could be what you heard.
Just look at the Directivity Index curves (the bottom 2 of a Spin graph), the lower the curve the wider the directivity.
The B&W is wider directivity in general. But the 3kHz dip means it won't sound as wide, but EQ that dip and it will.
And just for reference, I refer to dispersion as the raw performance and directivity as the normalized performance.
The curves are simply the difference between them and the listening window.Thanks I get it now, here are a few questions if you don't mind making me none the wiser please, what does the delta between the SP DI and Early Reflections DI signify? I ask because in the above graphs the KEF has a wider gulf between it's Sound Power DI and Early Reflections DI compared to the B&W?
Does this mean that actually the KEFs disperse the sound pretty well in a living space due to the reflections that the listener gets? ie. the early reflection compensate for lack of directivity?
What is more significant, the Early Reflections DI or Sound Power DI? Sorry I did read all this on audioholics but I can't find much on the correlation between the two.
Pretty ironic, I have a KEF system coming next week built around the R series (R7, R2C and R3 Rears) I selected this system as I am listening along a 4 x 4 metre listening area and thought the keys dispersed the sound more equally when I went for demo's....
The curves are simply the difference between them and the listening window.
The more linear, the more consistent in soundstage width and the easier to EQ.
Not fully sure, I’d say the ER DI becomes more important the closer you sit (so near-field) and Sound Power DI becomes more important the further you sit.Thanks and which is the more significant one? I’m struggling to understand the real world difference between the Sound Power DI and Early Reflections DI. I understand the early reflections DI is the more significant of the two?
Thanks and which is the more significant one? I’m struggling to understand the real world difference between the Sound Power DI and Early Reflections DI. I understand the early reflections DI is the more significant of the two?
I believe we have evidence suggesting that it could be due to the shadow flare not being pushed all the way in--possibly more on one speaker than the other.Hello,
I don't want to divert the thread too much, but I came across the Kef R11 measurements from Hi-Fi News
View attachment 125428
Could this dip around 1khz (and the weird pair matching) be related to the shadow flare ?
I was only looking at the area around 1khz and comparing it to Erin's measurement from p. 1 of this thread. It looks quite similar to his measurement comparing different positions of the shadow flare.How accurate are Hi-Fi news measurements. All of the measurements I've seen from them seem to be somewhat more "off" than similar measurements from others.
Could this dip around 1khz (and the weird pair matching) be related to the shadow flare ?
I was only looking at the area around 1khz and comparing it to Erin's measurement from p. 1 of this thread. It looks quite similar to his measurement comparing different positions of the shadow flare.
Shouldn't we start a class action ?Yep, I'd agree.