KEF Blade 2 vs Ascend ELX Towers as End Game

[traind]

Subjectively for my situation, boomines is way less. Still my wife is stepping downstairs into my listening room (living room) being upset about too much bass, she feels the air pressure has been increased to unpleasend levels upstairs. This is some oberservation of my wife's behavior which came new with the ELX.
The more I listen to them, the more I am blown away how enjoyable the are.

It sounds like you have a real opportunity to advance the science in our audio hobby. Many audiophiles talk about it but I have not seen well done measurements. If motivated, you could get metrics on the correlation between your listening enjoyment, your wife's displeasure when on the floor above and the bass volume and quality. Think about it, a scientific measure of when your enjoyment peaks but then falls off sharply due to your wife's displeasure peaking. And how does that correlate to quantity and quality of bass?

I am imagining the chart now.

 

[Digital_Thor]

I actually looks like the Blades have slightly wider dispersion than the Genelec Ones outside of the top octave, though not by much. They're surprisingly similar overall, even more-so than I remember from last time I compared .
View attachment 440397

This is the very definition of flat and smooth.

 

[witwald]

... try "James Blake - Limit to your love" and experience your room being pressurized.

Below is the result of a spectrum analysis of that track. There's quite a bit of low-frequency energy, reaching down to 18 Hz or so. The two dominant peaks are located at 46 Hz and 49 Hz, which is relatively high in frequency. In comparison with those two peaks, the peak at 37 Hz is reduced in intensity by 7 dB, while the one at 18 Hz is about 18 dB lower.

 

[07avivo]

the peak at 37 Hz is reduced in intensity by 7 dB, while the one at 18 Hz is about 18 dB lower.

The plot shows FFT of the complete track, right? So we see an averaged frequency content. If you do stfft, I suspect we will see the 18Hz tone way higher as it is "on" for about half the track only.

 

[Digital_Thor]

Try this track too. It has a very deep tight atmospheric rumble, that will slowly crawl across the floor, if your system is both capable and tuned smooth and relatively flat.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Came to this thread in search of a endgame speaker (for the next 10 years perhaps ...) , not much to add only that this thread, has value. well beyond how full range the ELX or the Blade would be.
It is most important to realize that. it seems that this $6K speaker could own its own versus famed and superb Kef Blade 2... This thread suggest that there exist alternatives at a less brutal price than the Blade 2 or the Revel F338Be ASCILAB .. Not saying that these are overpriced .. simply that, there exist several endgame type speakers at a sane price. These woudl deserve reviews by @amirm or Erin...
The ASCILAB higher end models, come to mind but also others, some discussed in this thread.

On the low end, full range issue: I am a fervent subwooferS user and proponent .. The low end <80 Hz) , in my book is best served by dedicated, separated in space, specialized transducers. This is not an opinion, it is supported by facts. It may not be easy to achieve or applicable to some, it remains a fact.

Carry on. I am thinking through it all.

 

[witwald]

The plot shows FFT of the complete track, right?

Correct. That gives a good indication of overall bass levels.

So we see an averaged frequency content. If you do stfft, I suspect we will see the 18Hz tone way higher as it is "on" for about half the track only.

Below is the result of a peak FFT analysis. Not that much different. The 30–60 Hz content is still quite dominant, much like it was for the average. A closer analysis of just the sections containing the main energy below 25 Hz show a similar behaviour.

Using a 15–22 Hz bandpass filter, below is the remaining 18 Hz tone. The peak level of the whole track has been normalised to 0.95, and the amplitude range for the plot is ±1.0. Hence, it seems quite clear that the 18 Hz tone is well below FS (full scale). That was borne out by the FFT analysis too.

Compare that with the "heartbeak" pulse on the opening track to Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" album. This waveform shows much higher peak amplitudes.

 

[07avivo]

It is most important to realize that. it seems that this $6K speaker could own its own versus famed and superb Kef Blade 2

Looking at size-per-audio quality (measurements, audio engineering and expected in-room repsonse) it is endgame indeed.
Definetly Ascend could become more endgame in the outer appearance. For my this would include hidden screws around the drivers, nice looking binding posts (at the bottom) and a foot other than glossy black. Also the rectangular cabinet could be something more "stylisch" having a rounded backside or a material mix just for the looks. This would increace the price for ELX by an arbitrary amount of money which is obiously not the business model of Ascend.
On the other hand, people buy Mofi Sourcepoints... Maybe my taste is very different to the casual audiophile.

 

[Mort]

Definetly Ascend could become more endgame in the outer appearance

This. I couldn't buy them.

 

[mj30250]

Mine are satin black and I love how plain and unobtrusive they are in that setup (finished basement). They draw virtually no attention to themselves until they start making noises, which suits the space perfectly. In a primary living room the aesthetic goals might be different.